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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



The Study of History in Schools 



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The Study of 
History in Schools 



REPORT TO THE 
/ 
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 



The Committee of Seven 

ANDREW C. Mclaughlin, chairman 
HERBERT B. ADAMS CHARLES H. HASKINS 

GEORGE L. FOX LUCY M. SALMON 

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART H. MORSE STEPHENS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
1899 

All rights reserved 






COEYRIGHT, 1899, 

By the AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 



t( W^9.'\\^')'^ \ 






J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 






Preface 

In the early winter of 1896 the committee mak- 
ing the following report was appointed by the 
American Historical Association to consider the 
subject of history in the secondary schools and 
to draw up a scheme of college entrance require- 
ments in history. Since that time we have held 
five meetings, each lasting several days; at each 
of these meetings all the members of the com- 
mittee have been present, except that Professor 
Salmon was absent in Europe during the last two. 
Every question involving doubt has been carefully, 
thoroughly, and systematically discussed, and in 
the conclusions here presented all the members 
concur. 

Of the seven persons composing the commit- 
tee only one is a teacher in a secondary school; 
three others, however, have been secondary-school 
teachers, while others have been actively interested 
for years in the general problems under considera- 



vi Preface 

tion. Although we felt that we had at the beginning 
some knowledge of the situation, and knew of the 
difficulties and limitations as well as of the accom- 
plishments of the schools, it seemed necessary to 
make a careful study of the whole question and to 
gather information concerning the conditions and 
the tendencies of historical instruction. We have 
endeavored, in the light of the actual facts, to pre- 
pare a report that may be useful and suggestive 
to teachers of history and that may furnish to 
superintendents and principals some assistance in 
the task of framing programmes and in determin- 
ing methods of work. We have sought to be 
helpful rather than merely critical or depreciatory,] 
and have tried to consider the whole field in a 
broad and general way, remembering that we were 
making suggestions and recommendations, not for 
the schools of one section or of one kind, but for 
the schools of the nation. 



Preliminary Work of the 
Committee 



■History as a secondary study now demands seri- 
ous attention. The report of the National Com- 
missioner of Education for 1896-97 shows that 
there were at that time 186,581 pupils in the sec- 
ondary schools studying history (other than United 
States history). No statistics have been collected 
to show the number studying the history and gov- 
ernment of the United States; but there is good 
ground for saying that, if such students were taken 
into account, the number of history pupils would 
be found to exceed two hundred thousand, and 
would perhaps equal if not exceed in number 
those engaged in the study of any other subject 
save algebra. According to the statistics of the 
Bureau of Education, the number of pupils study- 
ing history (other than United States history) has 
increased nearly thirty-three per cent in the last 
seven years, a rate of increase below that of only 
one subject in the curriculum. These simple facts 



2 Preliminary Work 

seem to make it plain that college entrance re- 
quirements, that are properly based upon the work 
and tendencies of the secondary schools, should 
include a liberal amount of history among the 
prescribed and optional studies. 

An investigation of the subject of history, as it 
is studied and taught in the secondary schools, 
presents many difficulties. Even before the com- 
mittee began seriously to consider what work was 
to be done, it became apparent that only a thorough 
study would be profitable, that general conclusions 
or recommendations, even on such a question as 
that of college entrance requirements, could not 
be made without an examination of the whole field 
and a consideration of many fundamental princi- 
ples, or without ascertaining what was now doing 
in the high schools and academies of the country. 

Before this work was undertaken, there had not 
been any systematic attempt of this kind ; nor had 
there been any prolonged effort by any national 
association to present the claims of history, or to 
set before the schoolmen a statement of what might 
be considered the value of historical study and 
the place which it should occupy in the school 
programme. We do not leave out of consideration 
the work of the Committee of Ten, nor do we 
underestimate the value or the effect of the able 
and highly interesting report of the Madison Con- 



Previous Discussions 3 

ference on History, Civil Government, and Eco- 
nomics ; ^ and we do not lose sight of the fact that 
historical instruction in the secondary schools had 
often been discussed in pedagogical conferences 
and teachers' associations. Before we began our 
work, it was plain that there was an awakening 
interest in this whole subject, and the time seemed 
to be at hand when a systematic effort would meet 
with response and produce results. But in spite 
of all that had been done, and in spite of this 
awakened interest, there was no recognized con- 
sensus of opinion in the country at large, not one 
generally accepted judgment, not even one well- 
known point of agreement, which would serve as 
a beginning for a consideration of the place of 
history in the high-school curriculum. Such a 
statement cannot be made concerning any other 
subject commonly taught in the secondary schools. 
The task of the committee was, therefore, to 
discover the actual situation, to see what was doing 
and what was the prevailing sentiment, to localize 
and establish a modicum of practices and prin- 
ciples, however small and Hmited it might be ; and, 
having apprehended what was best and most help- 

1 This conference was held in December, 1892 ; its conclusions 
form a part of the report of the Committee of Ten, published by the 
Bureau of Education in 1893, ^^^ reprinted by the American Book 
Company, New York, 1894. 



4 Preliminary Work 

ful in spirit and tendency among teachers of the 
country, to seek to give that spirit expression in a 
report that would be helpful and suggestive, and 
that would be of service in widening the field of 
agreement and in laying the foundations for a 
common understanding. 

In all of our work we have endeavored not only 
to discover any agreement or common understand- 
ing that may exist among American teachers, but 
to keep in mind the fact that local conditions and 
environments vary exceedingly, — that what may 
be expected of a large and well-equipped school 
need not be expected of a small one, and that 
large preparatory schools and academies, some of 
them intentionally fitting boys for one or two uni- 
versities, are in a situation quite unlike that in 
which the great majority of high schools are com- 
pelled to work. We have sought chiefly to 
discuss, in an argumentative way, the general sub- 
ject submitted for consideration, to offer sugges- 
tions as to methods of historical teaching and as 
to the place of history on the school programme, 
being fully aware that, when all is said and done, 
only so much will be adopted as appeals to the 
sense and judgment of the secondary teachers and 
superintendents ; and that any rigid list of require- 
ments, or any body of peremptory demands, how- 
ever judiciously framed, not only would, but should. 



Present Conditions 5 

be disregarded in schools whose local conditions 
make it unwise to accept them. 

The committee determined that every reason- 
able means should be used to ascertain the present 
condition of historical study. Several hundred 
circulars asking for information were sent out to 
schools in all parts of the United States, selected 
not because they were supposed to be exception- 
ally good or exceptionally bad, or unusually strong 
in historical work, but because they were recom- 
mended to the committee by competent authority 
as typical schools. Circulars were sent to different 
kinds of schools, to those in small towns as well as 
to those in large cities, and to private academies 
as well as to public high schools. About two hun- 
dred and fifty replies have been received, and the 
information thus gathered is presented and dis- 
cussed in Appendix I. to this report. 

But to seek information through printed inter- 
rogatories is always somewhat unsatisfactory ; and 
the committee therefore used other means also. 
Steps were taken to secure full discussions in the 
different educational associations of the country, 
in order that many teachers might become inter- 
ested in the work of the committee and give need- 
ful information, and in order that there might be a 
free interchange of opinion on some of the more 
important problems that called for solution. Dis- 



6 Preliminary Work 

cussions on some portions of our report have been 
held by the New England History Teachers' As- 
sociation, the Association of Colleges and Prepara- 
tory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, 
the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club, the Round 
Table in History of the National Educational As- 
sociation, and by other educational bodies, as well 
as at two meetings of the American Historical 
Association. Moreover, at various times in the 
course of the past two years, different members of 
the committee have personally consulted teachers 
and talked the subject over with them. These 
efforts seem to demonstrate that we have not 
reached conclusions hastily, and that our report is 
not merely the expression of the theoretical aspira- 
tions of college professors who are unacquainted 
with the conditions of the secondary schools. It 
is in a very proper sense the result of careful ex- 
amination and systematic inquiry concerning the 
secondary conditions of the country. 

It is not necessary to review here in detail the 
conclusions reached from a study of the circulars 
received from the schools. It will be seen by an 
examination of these conclusions, as presented in 
the Appendix, that in regard to many matters on 
which we sought information there is little or no 
agreement. Concerning the amount of history 
offered, the fields of history studied, the order 



Information from Teachers 7 

in which the different fields are taken up, and the 
years in which the subject is taught, there is much 
diversity of practice ; but, on the other hand, we 
find marked approach to uniformity in one par- 
ticular ; namely, that good schools in all parts of 
the United States have adopted substantially simi- 
lar methods of instruction. It is perfectly plain 
that the old rote system is going by the board. 
Practically every school now reports the use of ma- 
terial outside the text-book, and recognizes that a 
library is necessary for efficient work ; and nearly 
all teachers assign topics for investigation by the 
pupil, or give written recitations, or adopt like 
means of arousing the pupil's interest and of lead- 
ing him to think and work in some measure inde- 
pendently, in order that he may acquire power as 
well as information.^ Of course these methods 
are more extensively developed in some schools 
than in others ; but the facts point to a common 
understanding, or at least to the approach toward 
a common understanding, of what history teaching 
should be, and to a growing appreciation of what 
historical study can do. We venture to say that 
if a school has well-trained teachers, who know 
why they teach and how to teach, the order of 

1 Undoubtedly the report of the Madison Conference had a very 
beneficial influence in this direction, by calling the attention of the 
teachers of the country to what ideals of historical instruction are. 



8 Preliminary Work 

historical studies, or the exact method of handling 
a field of historical inquiry, is comparatively unim- 
portant; and it is this evidence of a realization 
that history has a value as a pedagogical subject, 
indicating as it does a new interest on the part of 
teachers and directors of schools, and bringing 
surely in its train a demand for skilful teachers, 
which should give courage and hope to those who 
are interested in the successful use of history as a 
means of discipline and culture. 

In matters of detail, the conclusions that could 
be drawn from the replies to the circulars were 
somewhat meagre, but they were helpful in ena- 
bling the committee to judge of tendencies and to 
form a general opinion as to existing conditions. 
But, as we have already said, we have not con- 
tented ourselves with this method of ascertaining 
the situation. By the more personal means adopted 
we have gained information which cannot readily 
be tabulated, but which enables us to have some 
assurance concerning the tendencies of the time, 
and to feel that in many respects present condi- 
tions are not satisfactory to the active, progressive 
teachers of the country. It is often more valu- 
able to find out how one highly successful teacher 
attains his end than how twenty unsuccessful 
teachers do not ; and to discover what practical, 
experienced teachers, who have given thought to 



Results from Circulars 9 

the subject, think can be done and should be done, 
than to know the static condition of twenty others 
who are content with the semi-success or the fail- 
ure of the present. 

In the summer of 1897 three members of the com- 
mittee were studying educational problems in Eu- 
rope. Miss Salmon spent the summer in Germany 
and German Switzerland, studying the methods 
of historical instruction in the secondary schools. 
The results of her investigations were given in a 
paper read before the American Historical Asso- 
ciation in December, 1897. Mr. Haskins has at 
different times studied the educational system of 
France ; after a further examination of secondary 
conditions in 1897, he prepared a report on the 
subject of history teaching in that country. Mr. 
Fox has a thorough acquaintance with the EngHsh 
public schools, and has prepared a report on the 
teaching of history in the secondary schools of 
England. These articles on the conditions of 
historical instruction in European countries are 
given as Appendices to this report. They are not 
offered as furnishing us models to which we ought 
to conform, but as investigations in the study of 
comparative education; they may, however, give 
to teachers of this country suggestions on the 
subject of general pedagogical values, methods 
of historical instruction, and the arrangement of 



lo Preliminary Work 

studies. The committee has not supposed that it 
is possible to import a foreign-made regime to which 
the American schools can be asked to adapt them- 
selves. 

It will be seen that of foreign countries Germany 
is the one that offers to America the most lessons, 
of which probably the most important is that sug- 
gested by the great advantage resulting from hav- 
ing the subject of history, as well as other subjects, 
in the hands of thoroughly equipped teachers, who 
have received instruction in method, and are versed 
in the art of imparting information with due regard 
to the pupil's age and degree of mental advance- 
ment. In the German gymnasia the course of 
history, from Homeric times to the present day, 
is covered with great thoroughness and system. 
To this part of the report on the German schools 
we wish to call special attention ; for while we do 
not think that it is profitable 'for us, even in this 
particular, to follow the German curriculum exactly, 
we believe that there should be an effort on the 
part of those who are organizing programmes to 
reach toward this ideal, by extending the course 
of history over a number of years, and by devel- 
oping it in accordance with the psychological 
principles which have been adhered to in the prep- 
aration of the German course of study. It should 
be noticed too that in German schools, history is 



German Experience ii 

correlated with other subjects : the teacher of his- 
tory, where opportunity offers, makes use of the 
foreign language which the pupils are studying, 
and the language teacher refers to historical facts ; 
one subject in the curriculum thus helps to re- 
enforce another. The methods of the German 
teacher also deserve careful consideration : inter- 
est is aroused by skilful oral teaching, in which 
the teacher adapts his story to the minds and 
capacities of his hearers, and so holds their atten- 
tion that concentration of mind and ability to grasp 
the subject are developed. It must be confessed 
that Miss Salmon's description of how a teacher 
in Bale, in the middle of a hot summer day, held 
the breathless attention of a class of boys for 
fifty minutes, while he told the story of the dra- 
matic struggle between Henry IV. and Gregory 
VII., suggests not only phenomenal methods, but 
unusual boys ; but withal we must attribute the 
teacher's success to his skill, and to the previous 
training which the boys had received in the lower 
grades, where inattention or heedlessness was not 
tolerated. 

Doubtless teachers of history in this country can- 
not follow the example of German teachers in all 
respects. The German believes that, until the boy 
reaches the university, he has no judgment to be 
appealed to, and no great reasoning faculty to be 



12 Preliminary Work 

developed ; that it is his business, until eighteen or 
nineteen years of age, to absorb, not to argue or 
discuss. He is not expected to ask questions ; he 
is expected to do what he is told. Such, however, 
is not the system for making American citizens, 
and such is not the atmosphere in which the Amer- 
ican boy or girl should live. Nor can it be said 
that under our present conditions the teacher of 
history should attempt to give instruction to sec- 
ondary pupils without the help of a text. 

The system and methods of instruction in the 
schools of France are interesting, but somewhat 
less suggestive than those of the German schools. 
There, as in Germany, history is in the hands of 
trained teachers, who have a capacity for holding 
the pupil's attention, arousing interest, and devel- 
oping a love for historical study, as well as for giv- 
ing a vast amount of historical information. The 
course of study is long, thorough, and systemati- 
cally organized. The conditions of German Switz- 
erland are essentially similar to those of Germany 
itself. 

The situation in England does not offer many 
valuable lessons to American teachers. The most 
noticeable features are a lack of historical instruc- 
tion, a common failure to recognize the value of 
history, and a certain incoherence and general con- 
fusion. We cannot here discuss the reasons for 



France and England 13 

these conditions. It is enough to say that the lais- 
sez faire idea has been carried farther and is more 
marked in England than in America; for, on the 
whole, we have an educational system, and each 
passing year shows an increase in the common 
stock of principles. And yet one who examines 
the condition of historical instruction in this coun- 
try, and compares it with that of France and 
Germany, feels that Englishmen and Americans 
are of one blood : the individualistic spirit of the 
race has found unusual expression in educational 
practices, and has made against cooperation and 
harmony, while instinctive aversion to theoretical 
arrangement has hindered the development of gen- 
eral principles. A comparison of English con- 
ditions with those of the continent will be likely 
to show the value of system and order, and the 
advantage resulting from the sway of good peda- 
gogical doctrines. We must endeavor in America 
to reach a system of our own, and to recognize the 
force of sound principles, without losing sight of 
the fact that our local conditions are many, and 
that we must rely on individual initiative and en- 
thusiasm, if not on impulse. Nevertheless, in spite 
of local diversity, and in spite of the fact that a 
rigid regime seems on the whole impossible if not 
undesirable, in this country, there are sound gen- 
eral principles that may be termed absolute rather 



14 Preliminary Work 

than relative ; there is a proper method of unfold- 
ing the subject, and there are improper methods ; 
or, to speak more justly, method and system, 
which recognize the true character of the study 
and the principles by which it may be adapted to 
pupils of different ages, are certainly wiser and 
better than any haphazard method and lack of 
system can be. 

While it is impossible to transplant any foreign 
course of study to our schools, and unwise to imi- 
tate blindly European methods of instruction, there 
are at least two lessons that may be learned from 
foreign schools; namely, the wisdom of demanding 
thoroughly trained teachers of history, and that of 
giving a large place to historical instruction in all 
courses. In both France and Germany, history is 
taught by special teachers, whose historical training 
has been carried to a point well beyond our Ameri- 
can bachelor's degree, and whose pedagogical abil- 
ity has been specially tested. In France an hour 
and a half each week is given to history throughout 
the ten years of the elementary school and lycee ; 
in Germany, history is pursued two or three hours 
weekly in every year of the nine years of the gym- 
nasium ; and even in Russia the time given to his- 
tory is much longer than in the average American 
school. Not merely on these grounds, however, 
do we ask larger recognition for history ; we hope 



Lessons from Abroad- 15 

to present, in the course of this report, substantial 
reasons for such recognition drawn from the nature 
of the subject and from its relations to the devel- 
opment of the American boys and girls; but we 
call attention to what is now done in other coun- 
tries as evidence that our recommendations are not 
fanciful or revolutionary. 



Value of Historical Study 

It may seem to be unnecessary to consider the 
value of historical study in itself, or to show how 
history may be related to other subjects in the 
school curriculum. As a matter of fact, however, 
the educational value of every other subject has 
received more attention than that of history ; in- 
deed, only within the last few years has there 
been anything like a thoughtful discussion, by 
practical teachers, of the worth of history as a dis- 
ciplinary study. When so much has been said of 
the necessity of studying the natural sciences, in 
order that one may come to some realization of the 
physical and vital world about him, and may know 
himself better as he knows his surroundings more 
thoroughly, and in order that his powers of obser- 
vation may be quickened and strengthened, it 
seems strange indeed that the same method of 
argument has not been used in behalf of historical 
work. If it is desirable that the high-school pupil 
should know the physical world, that he should 
know the habits of ants and bees, the laws of floral 

16 



Purpose of Education 17 

growth, the simple reactions in the chemical retort, 
it is certainly even more desirable that he should 
be led to see the steps in the development of the 
human race, and should have some dim perception 
of his own place, and of his country's place, in the 
great movements of men. One does not need to 
say in these latter days that secondary education 
ought to fit boys and girls to become, not scholas- 
tics, but men and women who know their surround- 
ings and have come to a sympathetic knowledge 
of their environment ; and it does not seem neces- 
sary now to argue that the most essential result 
of secondary education is acquaintance with politi- 
cal and social environment, some appreciation of 
the nature of the state and society, some sense of 
the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, some 
capacity in dealing with political and governmental 
questions, something of the broad and tolerant 
spirit which is bred by the study of past times and 
conditions. 

It is a law well recognized by psychologists, a 
law of which the teacher in school or college sees 
daily application and illustration, that one obtains 
knowledge by adding to the ideas which one 
already has new ideas organically related to the 
old. Recent psychological pedagogy looks upon 
the child as a reacting organism, and declares that 
he should be trained in those reactions which he 



1 8 Value of History 

will most need as an adult. The chief object of 
every experienced teacher is to get pupils to think 
properly after the method adopted in his particular 
line of work ; n'ot an accumulation of information, 
but the habit of correct thinking, is the supreme re- 
sult of good teaching in every branch of instruction. 
All this simply means that the student who is taught 
to consider political subjects in school, who is led 
to look at matters historically, has some mental 
equipment for a comprehension of the political and 
social problems that will confront him in every- 
day life, and has received practical preparation 
for social adaptation and for forceful participation 
in civic activities. 

We do not think that this preparation is satis- 
factorily acquired merely through the study of 
civil government, which, strictly construed, has to 
do only with existing institutions. The pupil 
should see the growth of the institutions which 
surround him ; he should see the work of men ; he 
should study the living concrete facts of the past ; 
he should know of nations that have risen and 
fallen ; he should see tyranny, vulgarity, greed, 
benevolence, patriotism, self-sacrifice, brought out 
in the lives and works of men. So strongly 
has this very thought taken hold of writers of 
civil government, that they no longer content 
themselves with a description of the government 



Relation to Government 19 

as it is, but describe at considerable length the 
origin and development of the institutions of which 
they speak. While we have no desire to under- 
estimate the value of civil government as a sec- 
ondary study, especially if it is written and taught 
from the historical point of view, we desire to 
emphasize the thought that appreciation and sym- 
pathy for the present is best secured by a study of 
the past ; and while we believe that it is the imper- 
ative duty of every high school and academy to 
teach boys and girls the elementary knowledge of 
the political machinery which they will be called 
upon to manage as citizens of a free state, we 
insist also that they should have the broader 
knowledge, the more intelligent spirit, that comes 
from a study of other men and of other times. 
They should be led to see that society is in move- 
ment, that what one sees about him is not the 
eternal but the transient, and that in the processes 
of change virtue must be militant if it is to be 
triumphant. 

While it is doubtless true that too much may be 
made of the idea that history furnishes us with 
rules, precepts, and maxims which may be used as 
immutable principles, as unerring guides for the 
conduct of the statesman and the practical poli- 
tician, or as means of foretelling the future, it is 
equally true that progress comes by making addi- 



20 Value of History 

tions to the past or by its silent modification. 
All our institutions, our habits of thought and 
modes of action, are inheritances from preceding 
ages : no conscious advance, no worthy reform, 
can be secured without both a knowledge of the 
present and an appreciation of how forces have 
worked in the social and political organization of 
former times. If this be so, need we seriously 
argue that the boys and girls in the schoolroom 
should be introduced to the past, which has created 
the present, — that historical-mindedness should 
be in some sHght measure bred within them, and 
that they should be given the habit, or the begin- 
nings of a habit, of considering what has been, 
when they discuss what is or what should be } 

Believing, then, that one of the chief objects of 
study is to bring boys and girls to some knowledge 
of their environment and to fit them to become 
intelligent citizens, we need hardly say that, if the 
study of history helps to accomplish this object, the 
public schools of the country are under the heavi- 
est obligations to foster the study, and not to treat 
it as an intruder entitled only to a berth in a cold 
corner, after language, mathematics, science, music, 
drawing, and gymnastics have been comfortably 
provided for. " It is clear," as Thomas Arnold 
has said, " that in whatever it is our duty to act, 
those matters also it is our duty to study." It is 



Training in Citizenship 21 

true that any subject which aids the pupil to think 
correctly, to be accurate and painstaking, which 
awakens his interest in books and gives him 
resources within himself, in reality fits him for 
good and useful citizenship ; but what other sub- 
jects do in this direction more or less indirectly, 
history does directly ; and moreover, if properly 
taught, it is not inferior to other subjects as a dis- 
ciplinary and educational study. Fortunately, an 
examination of school programmes, educational 
periodicals, and like material will now convince 
any one that educators are coming to the conclu- 
sion that history must receive more attention, and 
must be taught wisely and well. 

History cultivates the judgment by leading the 
pupil to see the relation between cause and effect, 
as cause and effect appear in human affairs. We 
do not mean by this that his attention should be 
directed solely to great moving causes, or that he 
should study what is sometimes called the '' phi- 
losophy of history," — far from it; nor do we 
mean that time should be consumed in discussing 
the meaning of facts when the facts themselves 
are not known. But history has to do with the 
becoming of past events, — not simply with what 
was, but with what came to be, — and in studying 
the simplest forms of historical narrative even the 
average pupil comes to see that one thing leads to 



22 Value of History 

another ; he begins quite unconsciously to see that 
events do not simply succeed each other in time, 
but that one grows out of another, or rather out of 
a combination of many others. Thus, before the 
end of the secondary course, the well- trained pupil 
has acquired some power in seeing relationships 
and detecting analogies. While it is perfectly true 
that the generalizing faculty is developed late, and 
that the secondary pupil will often learn unrelated 
data with ease, if not with avidity, it is equally true 
that history in the hands of the competent teacher 
is a great instrument for developing in the pupil 
capacity for seeing underlying reasons and for 
comprehending motives. In the ordinary class- 
room work, both in science and in mathematics, 
there is little opportunity for discussion, for differ- 
ences of opinion, for balancing of probabilities ; 
and yet in everyday life we do not deal with math- 
ematical demonstrations, or concern ourselves with 
scientific observations ; we reach conclusions by a 
judicious consideration of circumstances and con- 
ditions, some of them in apparent conflict with one 
another, and none of them susceptible of exact 
measurement and determination. 

The study of history gives training not only in 
acquiring facts, but in arranging and systematiz- 
ing them and in putting forth individual product. 
Power of gathering information is important, and 



Training in Judgment 23 

this power the study of history cultivates ; but the 
power of using information is of greater importance, 
and this power too is developed by historical work. 
We do not ask that pupils should be required to 
do so-called ''laboratory work," — we abjure the 
phrase, — and create histories out of absolutely un- 
hewn and unframed material; we simply say that, 
if a pupil is taught to get ideas and facts from vari- 
ous books, and to put those facts together into a 
new form, his ability to make use of knowledge is 
increased and strengthened. By assigning well- 
chosen topics that are adapted to the capacity of 
the pupil, and by requiring him to gather his in- 
formation in various places, the teacher may train 
the pupil to collect historical material, to arrange 
it, and to put it forth. This practice, we repeat, 
develops capacity for effective work, not capacity 
for absorption alone.^ 

History is also helpful in developing what is 
sometimes called the scientific habit of mind and 
thought. In one sense, this may mean the habit 
of thorough investigation for one's self of all 
sources of information, before one reaches con- 
clusions or expresses decided opinions. But only 
the learned speciahst can thus test more than the 

1 A consideration of what is said, in a later division of this re- 
port, on the methods of teaching, will show more fully how history 
may be used to this end. 



24 Value of History 

most ordinary and commonplace truths or princi- 
ples in any field of work. The scientific habit of 
mind in a broader sense means a recognition of 
the fact that sound conclusions do rest on some- 
body's patient investigations ; that, although we 
must accept the work of others, everybody is re- 
quired to study and think and examine before he 
positively asserts; that every question should be 
approached without prejudice ; that open-minded- 
ness, candor, honesty, are requisites for the attain- 
ment of scientific knowledge. The thoughtful 
teacher of experience will probably say that, even 
in the earlier years of the secondary course, these 
prime requisites of wholesome education may in 
some measure be cultivated ; and that, when op- 
portunity for comparative work is given in the 
later years, historical-mindedness may be so de- 
veloped as materially to influence the character 
and habits of the pupil. 

While we believe that power and not informa- 
tion must be the chief end of all school work, we 
must not underestimate the value of a store of 
historical material. By the study of history the 
pupil acquires a knowledge of facts that is to him 
a source of pleasure and gratification in his after 
life. If there be any truth in the saying that 
culture consists of an acquaintance with the best 
which the past has produced, — a very insufficient 



Training in Character 25 

definition, to be sure, — we need not argue about 
the value of historical information. But we may 
emphasize that brighter and broader culture which 
springs from a sympathy with the onward move- 
ments of the past, and an intelligent compre- 
hension of the duties of the present. Many a 
teacher has found that, in dealing with the great 
and noble acts and struggles of bygone men, he 
has succeeded in reaching the inner nature of the 
real boys and girls of his classes, and has given 
them impulses and honorable prejudices that are 
the surest sources of permanent and worthy refine- 
ment. We may venture to suggest that character 
is of even greater value than culture. 

A no less important result of historical study 
is the training which pupils receive in the handling 
of books. History, more than any other subject 
"in the secondary curriculum, demands for effec- 
tive work a library and the ability to use it. Skill 
in extracting knowledge from the printed page, 
or in thumbing indices and fingering tables of con- 
tents, is of great value to any one who is called 
upon to use books. The inability to discover what 
a book contains or where information is to be 
found is one of the common failings of the un- 
schooled and the untrained man. Through the 
study of history this facility in handling material 
may be cultivated, and at the same time the pupil 



26 Value of History 

may be introduced to good literature and inspired 
with a love for reading which will prove a priceless 
treasure to him. In this latter respect the study 
of history is second to that of English literature 
alone. 

With these results of historical study two others 
of decided value may in conclusion be briefly men- 
tioned : by the reading of good books, and by con- 
stant efforts to re-create the real past and make 
it live again, the pupil's imagination is at once 
quickened, strengthened, and disciplined ; and by 
means of the ordinary oral recitation, if properly 
conducted, he may be taught to express himself in 
well-chosen words. In the study of foreign lan- 
guage, he learns words and sees distinctions in 
their meanings ; in the study of science, he learns 
to speak with technical exactness and care ; in the 
study of history, while he must speak truthfully 
and accurately, he must seek to find apt words of 
his own with which to describe past conditions and 
to clothe his ideas, in a broad field of work which 
has no technical method of expression and no 
peculiar phraseology. 



Continuity of Historical Study 
and the Relation of History to 
other Subjects 

We have no intention of framing a secondary- 
school course, in which each study shall be care- 
fully related in time and space with every other ; 
such a process is, for the present at least, a task 
for each superintendent or principal in the conduct 
of his own work. Certain suggestions, however, 
are pertinent, and may be helpful. 

We believe that, whenever possible, history 
should be a continuous study. In some schools it 
is now given in three successive years ; in others 
it is offered in each of the four years of at least 
one course. Some practical teachers, impressed 
with this need of continuity, and feeling unable to 
give more time to the work, have thought it wise 
to give the subject in periods of only two recita- 
tions per week for one year or more ; and such a 
plan may prove desirable for the purpose of con- 
necting two years in which the work is given four 
or five times per week, or for the purpose of 

27 



28 Relations of History 

extending the course. Probably two periods a 
week, however, will seem altogether impracticable 
to the great majority of teachers, and we do not 
recommend that this step be taken when the cir- 
cumstances allow more substantial work. A prac- 
tical working programme in one of the very best 
western schools presents the following course : — 

7th grade, American History 4 periods. 

8th grade, American History 2 periods. 

9th grade (ist year of high school), Greek 

and Roman History 3 periods. 

loth grade, English History 3 periods. 

nth grade, Institutional History .... 2 periods. 

1 2th grade, American History 2 periods. 

Another school of high grade, where effective 
work is done, gives history in three periods per 
week for two years, and in five periods per week 
for two more years, viz. : — 

1st year of high school. Oriental, Greek, . 

and Roman History 3 times. 

2d year. Mediaeval and Modern European 

History 3 times. 

3d year, English History 5 times. 

4th year, American History, Economics, 

and Civics 5 times. 

In both of these schools some of the historical 
work is optional or elective, other parts are re- 



Continuity 29 

quired. These courses are given here simply to 
show how a long, continuous course may be 
arranged, where the circumstances make it inad- 
visable to give work four or five times per week 
for four years. We do not recommend courses in 
which the study comes twice a week, but only say 
that in some instances they may prove advisable 
as a means of keeping the parts of the course in 
connection. We cannot see our way clear to pro- 
posing the acceptance of a two-hour course in his- 
tory for entrance to college, if units are counted 
or definite requirements are laid down. 

A secondary-school course in which there are 
many distinct subjects may furnish to the pupil 
only bits of information, and not give the discipline 
resulting from a prolonged and continuous appli- 
cation to one subject, which is gradually unfolded 
as the pupil's mind and powers are developed. A 
course without unity may be distracting, and not 
educating in the original and best sense of the 
word. At least in some courses of the high school 
or academy, history is the best subject to give 
unity, continuity, and strength. Where a foreign 
language is pursued for four consecutive years, it 
serves this purpose ; but in other cases it is doubt- 
ful whether anything can do the work so well as 
history. Even science has so many branches and 
distinct divisions, — at all events, as it is customarily 



30 Relations of History 

taught, — that it does not seem to be a continuous 
subject. Doubtless there are relationships between 
physiology, chemistry, physics, botany, and physi- 
cal geography, and of course the methods of work 
in all of them are similar ; but to treat science as 
one subject, so that it may give opportunity for 
continuous development of the pupil, and. for a 
gradual unfolding of the problems of a single field 
of human study, seems to us to present many al- 
most insurmountable difficulties. A committee of 
historical students may be pardoned therefore for 
thinking that history furnishes a better instrument 
than science for such purposes. The history of the 
human race is one subject; and a course of four 
years can be so arranged as to make the study a 
continually developing and enlarging one, as the 
needs and capacities of the pupil are developed 
and enlarged. 

History should not be set at one side, as if it 
had no relation with other subjects in the sec- 
ondary course. Ideal conditions will prevail when 
the teachers in one field of work are able to take 
wise advantage of what their pupils are doing in 
another ; when the teacher of Latin or Greek will 
call the attention of his pupils, as they read Caesar 
or Xenophon, to the facts which they have learned 
in their history classes; when the teachers of 
French and German and English will do the same ; 



Unity 31 

when the teacher of physical geography will re- 
member that the earth is man's dwelling-place, 
or more properly his growing-place, and will be 
able to relate the mountains, seas, and tides of 
which he speaks with the growth and progress 
of men ; when he will remember that Marco Polo 
and Henry the Navigator and Meriwether Lewis 
were unfolding geography and making history, and 
that Cape Verde not only juts out into the Atlantic, 
but stands forth as a promontory in human his- 
tory. Is the time far distant when the march of 
the Ten Thousand will be looked upon not merely 
as a procession of optative moods and conditional 
clauses, but as an account of the great victory won 
by Greek skill, discipline, and intelligence over 
the helplessness of Oriental confusion ? And will 
Caesar long be taught only as a compound of 
ablative absolutes and indirect discourses, rather 
than as a story, told by one of history's greatest 
men, of how our Teutonic forefathers were brought 
face to face with Roman power, and how the peo- 
ples of Gaul were subjected to the art and the 
arms of Rome, and made to pass under the yoke 
of bondage to southern civilization and southern 
law ? The teacher of history, if he knows the 
foreign languages which his pupils are studying, 
may connect the words they have learned with 
concrete things; and he may, above all, help to 



32 Relations of History 

give the young people who are trying to master a 
foreign tongue, some appreciation of the tone, 
temper, and spirit of the people, without which a 
language seems void and characterless. 

History has a central position among the sub- 
jects of the curriculum. Like literature, it deals 
with man, and appeals to the sympathy, the imag- 
ination, and the emotional nature of the pupils. 
Like natural science, it employs methods of care- 
ful and unprejudiced investigation. It belongs to 
the humanities, for its essential purpose is to dis- 
close human life ; but it also searches for data, 
groups them, and builds generalizations from them. 
Though it may not be a science itself, its methods 
are similar to scientific methods, and are valuable 
in inculcating in the pupil a regard for accuracy 
and a reverence for truth. It corrects the formal- 
istic bias of language, by bringing the pupil into 
sympathetic contact with actualities and with the 
mind of man as it has reacted on his environment. 
It gives breadth, outlook, and human interest, 
which are not easily developed by the study of 
natural phenomena. Thus, as a theoretical propo- 
sition, at least, the assertion that the story of life 
and the onward movement of men, not their lan- 
guage or their physical environment, should form 
the ceotre of a liberal course, would seem to leave 
little ground for argument. 



A Central Subject 33 

We may add to all these considerations the fact 
that even in the natural sciences, as well as in other 
subjects, the historical method is not seldom used 
by advanced scholars and thinkers. The scholarly 
scientific investigator knows from careful study the 
development of his subject; he sees the successes 
and the failures of the past, and recognizes the 
lasting contributions that have from time to time 
been made in his field of investigation ; he often 
studies the civilization that gave birth to bygone 
and obsolete theories, and comes thus to a knowl- 
edge of his department of work as a growing and 
developing department. So, too, the advanced lin- 
guistic scholar is frequently engaged, not so much 
in the study of language, as in the examination of 
successive intellectual movements which have found 
expression in literature. This practice of linking 
the present with the past, of watching progress and 
studying change, has become one of the marked 
characteristics of modern learning; and it indi- 
cates that history, in the broad field of human 
affairs, is a subject which is contributory to others, 
is indeed a part of them, and occupies a central 
position among them. 



Four Years' Course, consisting of 
Four Blocks or Periods 

As a thorough and systematic course of study, 
we recommend four years of work, beginning with 
ancient history and ending with American history. 
For these four years we propose the division of 
the general field into four blocks or periods, and 
recommend that they be studied in the order in 
which they are here set down, which in large 
measure accords with the natural order of events, 
and shows the sequence of historical facts : — 

(i) Ancient History, with special reference to 
Greek and Roman history, but including also a 
short introductory study of the more ancient na- 
tions. This period should also embrace the early 
Middle Ages, and should close with the establish- 
ment of the Holy Roman Empire (800), or with 
the death of Charlemagne (814), or with the treaty 
of Verdun (843). 

(2) Mediaeval and Modern European History, 
from the close of the first period to the present 
time. 

34 



The Four Fields 35 

(3) English History. 

(4) American History and Civil Government. 
No one of these fields can be omitted without 

leaving serious lacunce in the pupil's knowledge of 
history. Each department has its special value 
and teaches its special lesson ; above all, the study 
of the whole field gives a meaning to each portion 
that it cannot have by itself. Greek and Roman 
civilization contributed so much to the world, — 
the work which these nations accomplished, the 
thoughts which they brought forth, the ideas 
which they embodied, form so large a part of the 
past, — that in any systematic course their history 
must be studied. The student of modern politics 
cannot afford to be ignorant of the problems, the 
strivings, the failures, of the republics and democ- 
racies of the ancient world. We speak of these 
nations as belonging to antiquity, but we have much 
of them with us to-day. The law of Rome has not 
gone ; the highest thought of Greece is eternal. 

We might justly insist that mediaeval history is 
worthy of a place in the school programme for its 
own sake, recounting as it does the development 
of the papacy and the Church, the establishment 
of feudalism, the foundation of modern states, the 
Renaissance, and the beginning of the Reforma- 
tion. But, if for no other reason, the history of 
the Middle Ages deserves study because without 



36 Four Years^ Course 

it Greece and Rome are isolated and seem to dwell 
in a world apart. On the other hand, the char- 
acter of the forces of modern times cannot be 
understood by one who examines them without 
reference to their mediaeval origins. 

Nor will any one seriously maintain in these 
latter days, when men are studying world move- 
ments, — when, as we are told, America has become 
a world power, — that the intelligent citizen has no 
concern with the chief events and leading terrden- 
cies of the last four centuries of European history. 
Indeed, it is especially desirable that American 
pupils should learn something of European history, 
since, by seeing the history of their own country 
in its proper perspective, they may appreciate its 
meaning, and may be relieved of a temptation to 
a narrow intolerance, which resembles patriotism 
only as bigotry resembles faith. 

Furthermore, English history until 1776 is our 
history; Edward I. and Pym, Hampden and Will- 
iam Pitt belong to our past and helped to make us 
what we are. Any argument in favor of Ameri- 
can history, therefore, holds almost equally true 
for the study of English history. A realization 
of present duties, a comprehension of present re- 
sponsibilities, an appreciation of present oppor- 
tunities, cannot better be inculcated than by a 
study of the centuries in which Englishmen were 



Chronological Sequence 37 

struggling for representation, free speech, and due 
process of law. 

The orderly chronological course which we here 
advocate has its marked advantages, but it should 
be so arranged that the pupil will do more than 
follow the main facts as he traces them from the 
earliest times to the present. The work must be 
so developed and widened, as time goes on, that 
in the later years the pupil will be dealing with 
broader and deeper problems than in the early 
years, and will be making use of the skill and 
scholarly sense that have been awakened and 
called into action by previous training. By a 
course of this sort, pupils will obtain a conspectus 
of history which is fairly complete and satisfac- 
tory, will follow the forward march of events, and 
will come to see the present as a product of the 
past; while the teacher, at the same time, will 
have opportunity to unfold the problems and diffi- 
culties of historical study. 

The desirability of arranging historical fields of 
work in their natural chronological order will prob- 
ably appeal to every one, and need not be dwelt 
upon. Some persons, however, may object to the 
arrangement as unwise, in the light of other con- 
siderations. It may be contended that pupils 
should pass " from the known to the unknown," 
from the familiar to the unfamiliar and strange. 



38 Four Years' Course 

This precept we do not care formally to accept or 
to reject; but it will be remembered, that in all 
primary and grammar schools some historical work 
is given, and that we can take for granted, proba- 
bly, that all pupils know something of Ameri- 
can history, and perhaps of other history in ad- 
dition. As a matter of fact, therefore, we are not 
running counter to the doctrine above referred to, 
or violating the law of apperception. 

A like objection may be met with a similar 
answer. American history, some will say, should 
come the first year in the high school, because 
many pupils leave school before the later years. 
But this objection proves too much, for a large 
percentage of boys and girls do not enter the high 
school at all. American history should therefore 
be given in the grammar school. In fact, it is 
given in the eighth and lower grades in probably 
the vast majority of schools ; to repeat the course 
therefore in the first year of the secondary course 
is almost a waste of time, inasmuch as any marked 
development in the method of treatment is im- 
possible. On the other hand, by putting the study 
late in the course, the pupil can work along new 
lines and attack new problems ; the development 
of American institutions can be studied ; new and 
more difficult books can be read, and more ad- 
vanced methods used. 



Order of Fields 39 

Some teachers, believing that American history- 
is essential in every course, will object to the cur- 
riculum here suggested, on the ground that the 
last year is already overcrowded, and that we are 
asking the impossible when we suggest that the 
study be placed in that year. In any argument 
on such a question, history is at a disadvantage, 
because other subjects have from time immemorial 
been considered first, while history has been treated 
as a poor and needy relative: other subjects have 
their places, and claim at once nine full points in 
law. If it is more important that pupils should 
have knowledge of chemistry, solid geometry, 
physics, Greek, English literature, Latin, and what 
not, than a knowledge of the essentials of the po- 
litical and social life about them, of the nature and 
origin of the federal Constitution, of their duties 
and rights as citizens, and of the fundamental 
ideas for which their country stands, then of 
course American history need not enter. into the 
contest at all. In making these recommendations, 
however, we are not acting upon merely theoret- 
ical grounds : an investigation of existing condi- 
tions leads us to believe that there is a strong 
tendency to place American history in the last 
year of the course. 

It will be argued, again, that Greek and Roman 
history is too difficult for the first year. To this 



40 Four Years' Course 

we may answer, (i) that a number of excellent and 
successful teachers give the subject in the first 
year, and (2) that it is not necessary to fathom all 
the mysteries of the Athenian Constitution, or to 
penetrate the innermost secrets of Roman imperi- 
alism. It is not impossible to know the main out- 
lines of Greek and Roman history and to see the 
main features of Greek and Roman life. If Caesar, 
a great source of Roman history, can be studied in 
the original in the tenth grade, with all the sup- 
plementary information on military and historical 
matters which recent editors present, cannot sec- 
ondary material in the vernacular be studied in the 
ninth.? While we do not think that Greek and 
Roman history should be treated as a handmaiden 
of the Latin and Greek languages (to treat the 
subjects thus is to invert the natural relationship), 
we suggest that a course in ancient history in the 
first year will serve to give life and meaning to all 
the work in the classic tongues : the idea may 
come home to the pupil that Caesar and Cicero were 
real living, thinking, acting men, and not imagi- 
nary creatures begotten by the brains of modern 
grammar-mongers to vex the soul of the schoolboy. 
If this basis of fact is in the pupil's mind, the clas- 
sical teacher can amplify it in the later years of 
the high-school course, and can with far greater 
assurance use the language that he is teaching as 



Not too difficult 41 

a medium for bringing his pupils into contact with 
the thoughts and moving sentiments of antiquity. 

Some one may object that mediaeval and modern 
European history is too difficult for the tenth 
grade, and that other subjects should come at that 
time. The answer to such objection is, of course, 
that any other subject is too difficult if taught 
in its height and depth and breadth, but that the 
cardinal facts of European history can be under- 
stood, interesting and intelligible books can be read, 
the significant lessons can be learned. How many 
boys, when they are sixteen years old, cannot 
understand "The Scottish Chiefs," ''The Three 
Musketeers," " Twenty Years After," "Ivanhoe," 
'' The TaUsman," '' With Fire and Sword " ? And 
is the simple, truthful historic tale of border con- 
flict, the life and purposes of Richelieu, the death 
of Charles L, the career of Richard the Lion- 
hearted, the character of Saladin, the horrible 
barbarism of Tartar hordes, harder to be under- 
stood than the plot of an elaborate historical novel 
dealing with the same facts ? Is truth necessarily 
more difficult, as well as stranger, than fiction.? 
But the conclusive answer to this objection is the 
fact that European history in its most difficult 
form, " general history," is now taught in the 
second year in the greater part of the schools 
which offer the subject. 



42 Four Years' Course 

The committee may be criticised for outlining a 
four years' course at all, on the ground that no 
schools can devote so much time to history. This 
criticism is so important that the reasons which 
influenced us to take this action should be given 
seriatim, (i) Some schools do offer history in 
every year of the high school, either as a required 
or as an optional study; and the delineation of 
what seems to us a thorough and systematic regime 
may be of service to these schools, and to all 
others that desire to devote considerable time and 
energy to the subject. (2) If some schools can- 
not give all that is here proposed, that fact pre- 
sents no reason why an adequate course should 
not be outlined. We are not seeking to induce 
schools to give history a great amount of attention 
at the expense of other subjects ; but a course 
altogether complete and adequate needs to be out- 
lined before one can rightly discuss the availability 
of anything else. (3) An approach to an ideal 
course, in order of subjects, method, treatment, 
and time, is better than one that is constructed 
without any reference to the best and most sym- 
metrical system. (4) As a general rule, definite 
parts of the plan which we here outline may be 
taken as a working scheme. It is not necessary 
to draw up, on an entirely new theory, a briefer 
curriculum for schools that cannot take the whole 



Question of Time 43 

of what we here recommend : the simplest and 
wisest plan under such circumstances is to omit 
one or more of the blocks or periods into which 
we have divided the general field. 

If only three years can be devoted to historical 
work, three of the periods outlined above may be 
chosen, and one omitted ; such omission seems to 
us to be better than any condensation of the whole. 
But if any teacher desires to compress two of the 
periods into a single year's work, one of the fol- 
lowing plans may be wisely adopted, (i) Combine 
English and American history in such a manner 
that the more important principles wrought out in 
English history, and the main facts of English 
expansion, will be taught in connection with 
American colonial and later political history. 
(2) Treat English history in such a way as to 
include the most important elements of mediaeval 
and modern European history. 



Why no Short Course in General 
History is Recommended 

From the foregoing remarks, it will be seen 
that the committee believes that history should be 
given in four consecutive years in the secondary 
school, and that the study should be developed in 
an orderly fashion, with reasonable regard for 
chronological sequence ; in other words, that four 
years should be devoted to the study of the world's 
history, giving the pupil some knowledge of the 
progress of the race, enabling him to survey a 
broad field and to see the main acts in the histor- 
ical drama. While, of course, three years for such 
study are better than two, as two are better than 
one, a careful consideration of the problem in all 
its aspects has led us to the conclusion that we 
cannot strongly recommend, as altogether ade- 
quate, courses covering the whole field in less than 
four years. 

We do not recommend a short course in general 
history, because such a course necessitates one of 
two modes of treatment, neither of which is sound 

44 



No Short Course 45 

and reasonable. By one method, energy is devoted 
to the dreary, and perhaps profitless, task of mem- 
orizing facts, dates, names of kings and queens, 
and the rise and fall of dynasties ; there is no 
opportunity to see how facts arose or what they 
effected, or to study the material properly, or to see 
the events in simple form as one followed upon 
another, or to become acquainted with the histori- 
cal method of handling definite concrete facts 
and drawing inferences from them. The pupil is 
not introduced to the first principles of historical 
thinking; he is not brought into sympathy with 
men and ideas, or led to see the play of human 
forces, or given such a real knowledge of past times 
and conditions that he can realize that history has 
to do with life, with the thoughts, aspirations, 
and struggles of men. By the second method, 
pupils are led to deal with large and general 
ideas which are often quite beyond their com- 
prehension, ideas which are general inferences 
drawn by the learned historian from a well- 
stored treasure-house of definite data; they are 
taught to accept unquestioningly broad general- 
izations, the foundations of which they cannot 
possibly examine, — as they must do if they are to 
know how the historical student builds his infer- 
ences, or how one gains knowledge of the general 
truths of history. The first method is apt to heap 



46 General History 

meaningless data together : facts crowd one upon 
another ; there is no moving drama, but at the 
very best, perhaps, a series of kaleidoscopic pic- 
tures, in which the figures are arranged with seem- 
ing arbitrariness. If the second alternative be 
followed, all is order and system ; the pawns of 
the great game are folks and nations; the more 
effective chessmen are world-moving ideas. The 
experienced college teacher knows full well that 
students entering upon historical work will learn 
facts without seeing relationships ; that '* tend- 
ency" is a word of unknown dimensions; and that 
his first task is to lead his pupils to see how 
definite facts may be grouped into general facts, 
and how one condition of things led to another, 
until they come to a realizing sense of the fact 
that history deals with dynamics, not statics, and 
that drifts, tendencies, and movements are to be 
searched for by the proper interpretation of definite 
data, and the proper correlation of definite deeds 
and acts, with special reference to chronological 
sequence. If college students must thus be led to 
the comprehension of historical forces and general 
ideas, what hope is there that a general history, 
dealing only with tendencies, will be adapted to 
high-school needs ? 

But while we do not think that a secondary- 
school pupil can be brought to handle large gen- 



Practical Basis 47 

eralizations, we do believe that, if the time devoted 
to a period of history be sufficiently long to enable 
him to deal with the acts of individual men and to 
see their work, he can be taught to group his facts ; 
and that a power of analysis and construction, a 
capacity for seeing relationships and causes, an 
ability to grasp a general situation and to under- 
stand how it came to be, can be developed in him ; 
and that he can be brought to see that for the 
historian nothing is, but everything is becoming. 
In all such work, however, the teacher must begin 
with ideas and facts that are not altogether unfa- 
miliar, — with the activities, the impulses, the con- 
crete conduct of men. We do not mean by this 
that constitutional and social questions cannot be 
studied, that political movements cannot be inter- 
preted, or that the biographical system suitable for 
the lower grades should be continued through the 
secondary course. On the contrary, the pupil 
should be led to general facts just as soon as pos- 
sible, and should be induced to see inferences and 
the meanings of acts at the earliest possible mo- 
ment.^ He must not only have a well-articulated 

1 Let it be remembered that the course in history in the high 
school should have for its purpose the gradual awakening and 
developing of power. Pupils are often precipitated into general 
history, and asked to tax their powers of imagination and to grasp 
movements, when they are entirely without experience or training. 



48 General History 

skeleton of facts, but he must see movement, life, 
human energy. And yet the average pupil will 
follow the course of Julius Caesar or Augustus, 
when he cannot understand just why the Roman 
Republic was overthrown ; he can know much of 
the work of Constantine, when he cannot appreciate 
the influence of Christianity on the destinies of 
Rome and the world ; he can see what Charlemagne 
did, when he cannot comprehend the nature or char- 
acter of the Holy Roman Empire ; he is interested 
in Danton and Mirabeau, when he cannot real- 
ize the causes, characteristics, and effects of the 
French Revolution. It is impossible for one who 
knows only of mayors, constables, and county 
clerks, to reach out at once into a comprehension 
of the great motive forces in the world's history. 

We ask, then, for a course in history of such 
length that the pupil may get a broad and some- 
what comprehensive view of the general field, 
without having, on the one hand, to cram his mem- 
ory with unrelated, meaningless facts, or, on the 
other hand, to struggle with generalizations and 
philosophical ideas beyond his ken. We think 
that a course covering the whole field of history 
is desirable, because it gives something like a 
proper perspective and proportion ; because the 
history of man's activities is one subject, and the 
present is the product of all the past; because 



What may be done 49 

such a study broadens the mental horizon and 
gives breadth and culture ; because it is desirable 
that pupils should come to as full a realization as 
possible of their present surroundings, by seeing 
the long course of the race behind them ; because 
they ought to have a general conspectus of his- 
tory, in order that more particular studies of 
nations or of periods may be seen in something 
like actual relation with others. We think, how- 
ever, that quite as important as perspective or 
proportion are method and training, and a compre- 
hension of the essential character of the study. 

In exact accord with the principles here advo- 
cated all work in natural science is now conducted : 
a pupil is taught to understand how the simple 
laws of physics or chemistry are drawn up ; he 
is induced to think carefully and logically about 
what he sees, and about the meaning of the rules 
and fundamental truths which he is studying, in 
order that he may learn the science by thinking in 
it rather than by getting a bird's-eye view of the 
field. We do not argue that secondary pupils can 
be made constructive historians, that a power can 
be bred in them to seize for themselves essential 
data and weave a new fabric, that the mysteries 
of the historian's art can be disclosed to them, or 
that they can be taught to play upon a nation's 
stops with an assured and cunning, hand. But 



50 General History 

every study has its methods, its characteristic 
thinking, its own essential purpose ; and the pupil 
must be brought into some sympathy with the sub- 
ject. He must know history as history, just as he 
knows science as science. 

Any comparison between history and science is 
apt to be misleading. The method of the one 
study, for purposes of instruction at least, is not 
the method of the other : we do not suppose that 
Richelieu or William the Silent can be treated 
with any sort of moral reagent, or examined as a 
specimen under any high-power lens. And yet 
in some respects we may learn lessons from 
methods of scientific instruction. The modern 
teacher of botany does not endeavor to have his 
pupils learn a long list of classified shrubs, to 
know all the families and species by heart, or to 
make a telling synopsis of even any considerable 
section of the world's flora ; he examines a more 
limited field with care, and asks the students to 
see how seeds germinate and how plants grow, 
and to study with a microscope a piece of wood- 
fibre or the cross-section of a seed. This he 
does in order that the pupils may see the real 
subject, may know botany and acquire the habit 
of thinking as men of science think ; not, let 
it be understood, that he may discover new 
laws of floral growth or develop for himself a 



Compared with Science 51 

single principle, rule, or system of classification. 
And so in history : while we do not urge that 
pupils be asked to extort their knowledge from 
the raw material, or to search through the docu- 
ments to find the data which learned scholars have 
already found for them, we do ask that the old 
system of classification, and the old idea that one 
must see the whole field before he studies a part 
of it, be altogether given up, if an effort to know 
the outlines of the whole means that the pupil has 
not sufficient opportunity to study history as his- 
tory, to see how men moved and acted, to know 
that history deals with the sequence of events in 
time. To insist upon a general comprehension of 
the world's history before examining a part with 
care, would be quite as reasonable as to ask a 
pupil to study the circle of the sciences before he 
analyzes a flower or works an air-pump. 

While we believe that pupils can advantageously 
use the sources, chiefly as illustrative matter, we 
are not now arguing for the " source system " or 
insisting that he should be trained to handle origi- 
nal material. Skill in finding facts in documents 
or contemporary narratives, however desirable 
that may be, is not the sole end of historical 
instruction anyw^here, and above all in the second- 
ary schools. Even the historian is doing but a 
small part of his work when he is mousing through 



52 General History 

his material, and gathering this fact and another 
from forgotten corners. One of his most impor- 
tant and most difficult tasks is to detect the real 
meaning of events, and so to put his well-tested 
data together that their proper import and their 
actual inter-relations are brought to view. His- 
tory, we say again, has to do with the sequence 
of events in time ; and what we contend for is such 
a course in history as will enable one to see sequence 
and movement, — the words are not synonymous ; 
this simple essential of historical work, an essential, 
however, often lost sight of completely, must not 
be neglected. We believe that the pupil should 
study history, and not something else under the 
name of history, — neither philosophy on the one 
hand, nor the art of historical investigation on 
the other. 



How the Different Blocks or 
Periods may be Treated 

We may now briefly consider each one of the 
main divisions of the general field, and discuss the 
method in which it may best be handled. This 
portion of our report might be greatly extended, 
but we wish to confine ourselves to a consideration 
of general propositions, which are deemed impor- 
tant because they have to do with the essential 
character and purpose of the study. 

I. Ancient History 

Greek and Roman history is taught in a large 
number of the secondary schools, and in some 
schools no other branch of history is offered. This 
preference is explained by the evolution of the 
curriculum in which the Greek and Latin languages 
were long the dominant subjects, Greek and Ro- 
man history being thrust in at a later time as 
ancillary to the study of the ancient languages. In 
some schools the history remains a subordinate sub- 

53 



54 Treatment 

ject, coming once or twice a week, and, even then, it 
is often in the hands of a classical instructor who is 
more interested in linguistics than in history and 
has had no training in historical method. The 
course is apt to be confined to the histories of 
Greece and Rome ; the Orient is not infrequently- 
omitted; the mediaeval relations of Rome are usually 
ignored. The perspective and emphasis within 
the field covered have been determined by literary 
and linguistic, rather than by historical, considera- 
tions, with the result that the chief attention is 
devoted to the periods when great writers lived 
and wrote. Too much time, for example, is com- 
monly given to the Peloponnesian War, while the 
Hellenistic period is neglected. The history of 
the early Roman Republic is dwelt upon at the 
expense of the Empire, although very little is 
known of the early times. It sometimes seems 
as if the ghost of Livy were with us yet. 

The committee thinks that the time has come 
when ancient history may be studied independently 
as an interesting, instructive, and valuable part of 
the history of the human race. Classical pupils 
need such a study, not to support their classical 
work, but to give them a wider and deeper know- 
ledge of the life, thought, and character of the an- 
cient world; and non-classical pupils need the work 
still more than the classical, for in this study they 



Ancient History 55 

are likely to find their only opportunity of coming 
into contact with ancient ideas. We ask, then, 
that ancient history be taught as history, for the 
same purpose that any other branch of history is 
taught, — in order that pupils may learn the story 
of human achievement and be trained in historical 
thinking. 

To bring out the value of ancient history, it is 
especially important that Greek and Roman history 
should not be isolated, but that there should be 
some reference to the life and influence of other 
nations, and some comprehension of the wide field, 
which has a certain unity of its own. There should 
be a short introductory survey of Oriental history, 
as an indispensable background for a study of the 
classical peoples. This survey must be brief, and 
in the opinion of the committee should not exceed 
one-eighth of the entire time devoted to ancient 
history. It should aim to give (a) an idea of the 
remoteness of these Oriental beginnings, of the 
length and reach of recorded history ; (d) a definite 
knowledge of the names, location, and chronological 
succession of the early Oriental nations ; (c) the dis- 
tinguishing features of their civilizations, as con- 
cretely as possible ; (d) the recognizable fines of 
their influence on later times. The essential factors 
in this period may perhaps best be seen by con- 
centrating attention first on the kingdoms of the 



56 Treatment 

two great valleys, — that of the Nile and that of 
the Tigris and Euphrates, — and by bringing in 
the lesser peoples of the connecting regions as the 
great empires spread northward and meet. Persia 
may be taken up afterward, and its conquests may 
serve as a review of the others. 

Although, of course, Greek history should in- 
clude a short study of early times, and should dis- 
close the growth of Athens and Sparta and the 
characteristic life of the great classical period, it 
should not, on the other hand, omit an account of 
the chief events of the Hellenistic age, but should 
give some idea of the conquests of Alexander, of 
the kingdoms that arose out of them, and of the 
spread of Greek civilization over the East, so im- 
portant in relation to the influence of Greece upon 
later times. It should also give the main events 
in the later history of Greece, and should show 
the connection between Greek and Roman his- 
tory. Time for this survey may well be saved 
by omitting the details of the Peloponnesian war, 
which crowd so many text-books. This period 
should rather be used largely as connective tissue, 
to hold Greek and Roman history together ; it 
should be approached first from the Greek side, 
and be reviewed afterward in connection with the 
Roman conquest of the East. Care should be 
taken to show the overlapping of Greek and Ro- 



Ancient History 57 

man history chronologically, and to avoid the not 
uncommon impression among pupils that Rome 
was founded after the destruction of Corinth. 

The treatment of Roman history should be suf- 
ficiently full to correspond to its importance. Too 
much time, as it seems to the committee, is often 
spent upon the period of the Republic, especially 
on the early years, and too little upon that of the 
Empire. Adequate attention is not always paid to 
the development of Roman power and the expan- 
sion of Roman dominion. Some idea should be 
given of the organization of the world-state and of 
the extension of Roman civilization. Recognizing 
fully the difficulty of this period, and not seeking 
to force upon the pupils general ideas that confuse 
them, the teacher should endeavor to make them 
acquainted, not simply with emperors and praeto- 
rian guards, but with the wide sway of Rome ; 
and not so much with the " falling " of Rome, as 
with the impression left upon western Christen- 
dom by the spirit and character of the eternal city. 
This, we think, can be done by the careful use of 
concrete facts and illustrations, not by the use 
of philosophical generalizations. Probably most 
of us remember that our impressions from early 
study were that Rome really gave up the ghost 
with the accession of Augustus, — is that idea due 
to that good republican Livy again.'* And if we 



58 Treatment 

studied the Empire at all, we wondered why it took 
four hundred years and more for her to tread all 
the slippery way to Avernus, when once she had 
entered upon the road. To get such an impres- 
sion is to lose the truth of Rome. 

The continuation of ancient history into the 
early Middle Ages has a manifest convenience in 
a programme of two years' work in European his- 
tory. It secures an equitable adjustment of time, 
and a reasonable distribution of emphasis between 
the earlier and later periods. If the pupil stops his 
historical work at the end of the first year, it is 
desirable that he should not look upon classical 
history as a thing apart, but that he should be 
brought to see something of what followed the so- 
called " Fall " of the western Empire. Moreover, 
it is difficult to find a logical stopping-place at an 
earlier date : one cannot end with the introduction 
of Christianity, or with the Germanic invasions, 
or with the rise of Mohammedanism ; and to 
break off with the year 476 is to leave the pupil 
in a world of confusion, — the invasions only be- 
gun, the church not fully organized, the Empire 
not wholly ''fallen." Hence, from motives of 
clearness alone, there is a gain in carrying the 
pupil on to an age of comparative order and sim- 
plicity, such as one finds in the time of Charle- 
magne. Further study of the Middle Ages then 



Mediaeval and Modern 59 

begins with the dissolution of the Prankish Em- 
pire and the formation of new states.^ 

II. Mediaeval and Modern European History 

This field covers a period of a thousand years, 
and the history of at least four or five important 
nations ; it is necessarily, therefore, a matter of con- 
siderable difficulty to determine the best method 
by which the subject may be handled. Whether 
the whole field be covered superficially, or only 
the main lines be treated, it is highly desira- 
ble that some unity should be discovered if pos- 
sible, or that there should be some central line 
with which events or movements can be corre- 
lated. To find an assured principle of unity is 
exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible ; and it is 
very likely that writers will continue to disagree 
as to the best method of traversing this vast area. 

One way to get unity and continuity is to study 
general movements alone, without endeavoring to 

1 Such a survey of the beginnings of the Middle Ages must 
needs be quite brief, and should be confined to the primary fea- 
tures of the period, — to the Barbarian invasions, the rise of the 
Christian church and of Mohammedan civihzation, the persistence 
of the empire in the East, and the growth of Frankish power to 
its culmination under Charlemagne; This practice of combining 
ancient and mediaeval history has been followed in a number of 
schools, and the results have been satisfactory. 



6o Treatment 

follow the life of any one nation ; but while this 
method is possible for college classes, it may not 
be found feasible for secondary schools, where 
pupils have greater difficulty in comprehending 
general tendencies. Still, we think that certain 
essential characteristics of at least the mediaeval 
period may perhaps be studied. The period 
extending from Charlemagne to the Revival of 
Learning has a "strongly marked character, 
almost a personality of its own" ; and by a selec- 
tion of proper facts some of the main character- 
istics may be brought home to the knowledge of 
the high-school pupils. The teacher or text-writer 
who attempts this method must naturally proceed 
with great caution, getting general ideas before 
the students by a judicious use of concrete facts 
and illustrations, and not failing to give some of 
the more important events and dates that mark the 
period. He will probably find the most charac- 
teristic feature of the age is the unbroken dom- 
inance of the Roman church, and should there- 
fore bring out clearly the essential features of its 
organization, and explain the methods by which 
it exercised control in all departments of mediae- 
val life. If this is done, as it can and should be 
done, with care and impartiality, the pupil will 
receive a valuable lesson in historical truthfulness 
and objectivity, at the same time that he comes 



Mediaeval 6i 

to appreciate one of the great moving forces of 
European history. 

This method of treating continental history can 
be carried throughout the Reformation period by 
remembering that while that period marks the 
end of the Middle Ages it also forms the basis 
for modern European history. This epoch must 
therefore be taught with both points of view in 
mind. The main aspects of the time must be 
brought broadly before the pupil, and he must 
be led to see that the sixteenth century is a 
century of transition ; that the old order has been 
swept away; that religious, political, material, 
intellectual, and social life has been profoundly 
affected, not only by the teachings of Luther and 
Calvin, but by the development of the printing- 
press, the use of gunpowder, the voyages of Ma- 
gellan and Drake, and the change in economic 
values. The wars of religion mark the last efforts 
to reestablish united Christendom; and, although 
the treaty of WestphaHa (1648) seems well within 
the sphere of modern history, it may not improp- 
erly be selected as the end of this era of transition. 

From the close of this period, it will be found 
very difficult to treat only of movements of a gen- 
eral character affecting the life of Europe. There 
is now no great institution, like the church, which 
forms the centre of Christendom ; the different 



62 Treatment 

nations no longer belong to a system, but act as 
independent sovereigns ; the development of dis- 
tinct national life is now of primary concern to the 
historical student. But even in modern history, 
the method of treating epochs of international 
importance can be used to some extent. In order 
that this may be done, it will be necessary, proba- 
bly, so to connect movements or epochal charac- 
teristics with the history of particular nations that 
the separate development of the European states 
may be discerned. For example, the period from 
1648 to 171 5 can be treated as the age of Louis 
XIV. ; while the history of the seventeenth-century 
monarchy, illustrated by the attitude and the admin- 
istration of Louis, is brought to light, the history of 
western Europe may be studied in its relations with 
France. The period from 171 5 to 1763 is the age 
of colonial expansion, of rivalry between France 
and England ; and it can be studied from either 
England or France as a point of view. The age 
of Frederick the Great (1740- 1786) brings before 
us not only the rise of Prussia and the significance 
of that great fact, but the theory of enlightened 
despotism, of which Frederick was an exponent, 
and which was exemplified by the work of Cath- 
erine of Russia, Joseph IL, and other enlightened 
monarchs and ministers. For the period of the 
French Revolution and the Empire (1789-18 15), 



Modern 63 

France again may be taken as the centre from 
which to consider the international relations of 
European states, the development of the new prin- 
ciples of nationality, the sovereignty of the peo- 
ple, and the liberty of the individual From 1815 
to 1848 Metternich may be regarded as the cen- 
tral figure ; the reactionary characteristics of this 
time will naturally be dwelt upon, but the growth 
of new principles may also be illustrated, as seen 
in the establishment of independence in Greece 
and Belgium, and in the liberal monarchy of Louis 
Philippe. The system of Metternich broke down 
in 1848, and from that time to 1871 study is natu- 
rally directed to the work of Cavour and Bis- 
marck, to the unification of Italy and Germany, 
and to topics that may be easily considered in con- 
nection with these events. In attempting to give 
the pupil some idea of modern European politics 
since the establishment of the German Empire, it 
may be found advisable to treat Bismarck as the 
central figure down to 1890, and the Emperor 
William II. as the successor of Bismarck. In 
this connection, the extra-European ambitions and 
achievements of Germany, since 1871, will serve 
to bring out the fact that the history of the great 
European nations is now not only the history of 
Europe, but the history of Asia and Africa as well. 
In some such manner as this it may be possible 



64 Treatment 

to study the broad field of European history with 
special reference to movements or epochs. The 
outline is not given here as a proposal for a hard 
and fast system, but rather to illustrate the main 
principle for which we are contending ; namely, 
that some principle of unity should be discovered 
which will allow definite concrete treatment, avoid- 
ing, on the one hand, philosophical generalization, 
and, on the other, tangled accounts of detailed 
events which are made meaningless by the absence 
of proper connotation. 

Another method of securing unity and contin- 
uity is to select the history of one nation, prefera- 
bly that of France, as a central thread, and study 
the development of its life. It may be that an 
understanding of the chief transitions in the his- 
tory of one nation for a thousand years is all that 
the second-year pupil should be asked to acquire. 
But probably it will be quite possible for him 
to acquire more ; the Germanic migrations, the 
growth of the church, the invasions of the Sara- 
cens, the establishment of the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, feudalism, the crusades, the Renaissance, the 
rise of national monarchies, the religious wars, 
the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, 
the unification of Germany and Italy, the demo- 
cratic movements of the present century, — these 
and other important topics have immediate rela- 



Episodic or Central 65 

tion to French history, and may well be studied 
in connection with it. 

This method of treatment has been followed 
satisfactorily in some schools. Many teachers 
have used English history for the purpose with 
some success, and have thus given to their pupils 
no small knowledge of what went on upon the 
continent. England however does not serve this 
purpose so well as France ; we speak of this use of 
English history simply to show the practicability 
of the plan. Of course if any one nation is chosen, 
the student is apt to get an exalted idea of the part 
which that particular nation has played ; and there 
is danger, too, of a lack of proportion. But con- 
sistency, simplicity, and unity are more essential 
than general comprehension ; or, it might more 
truly be said, general comprehension and appre- 
ciation of proportions are almost impossible for 
boys and girls, and, if simplicity and compactness 
are wanting, there is apt to be no grasp of funda- 
mentals at all. If Fmnce be taken as a centre, 
events can be studied in sequence, the primary 
historical way of looking at things can be culti- 
vated, and the concrete acts of men can be exam- 
ined and discussed. 

If neither of the methods here suggested appeals 
to the teacher, he must seemingly do one of two 
things : he must endeavor to get a very genera] 



66 Treatment 

view of the field, give all the main facts and dates, 
and follow the histories of the nations in parallel 
lines; or he must omit large portions of the his- 
torical field altogether, and content himself with 
the study of a few important epochs. By either 
of these modes of treatment, any effort to unify is 
in large m-easure given up. The first way is not 
uncommonly followed, but it often results, as the 
committee thinks, in cramming the memory with 
indigestible facts and in mental confusion ; though 
an occasional effort to bind the parallel lines to- 
gether by horizontal lines will help to give unity 
and wholeness to the structure, or, to change the 
figure, an occasional view of a cross-section will 
have a like effect. The second method is adopted 
by some teachers, and they could with difficulty be 
convinced that it is not the best : they believe that 
by the intensive study of two or three epochs the 
best educational results are obtained. The Refor- 
mation, the age of Louis XIV., the French Revo- 
lution, and the nineteenth century might be selected 
as characteristic periods. We do not, however, 
urge this method upon the schools, or insist that 
it is the proper one. We know that it has been 
successfully used, and believe that under advan- 
tageous circumstances it will be likely to prove 
satisfactory ; although the failure to give a general 
view of European history is to be regretted. 



English History 67 

III. English History 

English history, coming in the third year of 
the school course, and completing the survey of 
European development, is exceedingly important. 
Significant as is the history of the EngUsh nation in 
itself, the study may be made doubly useful if the 
work is so conducted that it serves in some measure 
as a review of continental history and as a prepa- 
ration for American history. The pupils in our 
schools, as we have already suggested, can ill 
afford to lose such an introduction to the study of 
the history and institutions of the United States; 
for, without a knowledge of how the EngUsh peo- 
ple developed and English principles matured, 
they can have sHght appreciation of what Amer- 
ica means. Even the Revolution, for example, if 
studied as an isolated phenomenon, is bereft of 
half its meaning, to say the least, because the 
movement that ended in the separation of the colo- 
nies from the mother country and in the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution, began long before 
the colonies were founded, and because the 
Declaration of Independence was the formal 
announcement of democratic ideas that had their 
tap-root in EngUsh soil. 

We believe that considerable, if not the chief, 
attention should be paid to the gradual develop- 



68 Treatment 

ment of English political institutions. These 
words may sound forbidding, but it is to be hoped 
that the reader of this report will not imagine that 
we think of plunging the pupil into Stubbs or Hal- 
lam. We mean simply that the main features, the 
fundamental principles and practices of constitu- 
tional government should be studied, and that the 
steps in its development should be marked. It is 
not impossible to know the leading features of the 
work of William I. and its results, the principal 
reforms of Henry H., the chief developments of 
the thirteenth century, the actual meanings of 
Tudor supremacy, the underlying causes, pur- 
poses, and results of the Puritan Revolution, the 
work of Pym and Eliot, of Robert Walpole or of 
Earl Grey. One might almost as well object to 
mathematics in the high school because quaterni- 
ons or the integral calculus are hard and abstruse, 
as to complain of the difficulty of the constitu- 
tional history of England because, when studied 
profoundly, it is, like every other subject, full of 
perplexities. The treatment must be simple, 
direct, and forcible, and its supreme object must 
be to show the long struggle for political and civil 
privileges, and the gradual growth of the cardinal 
forms and salient ideas of the English state. One 
cannot forget, even in a high-school course, that 
England is the mother of modern constitutional 



English History 6g 

government ; that by the force of example she has 
become the law-giver of the nations. 

The pupil should be led to see how the state 
grew in power, how the government developed, 
and how it became more and more responsive to 
the popular will and watchful of individual inter- 
ests. But he ought to see more than merely 
political progress : he can be made to see, at least 
to some small extent, how the life of men broad- 
ened as the years went by, and can note some 
of the many changes in habits of living and in in- 
dustry. Such a reign as that of Elizabeth would 
yield but little of its meaning if the student should 
content himself with the hackneyed phrase of 
" Tudor absolutism " (but half true at the best), 
and did not see the social and industrial move- 
ments, the great human uprising, " the general 
awakening of national life, the increase of wealth, 
of refinement and leisure," in that age when the 
" sphere of human interest was widened as it had 
never been widened before .... by the revelation of 
a new heaven and a new earth." The wise teacher 
will not neglect the collateral study of literature, 
but will endeavor to show that it partook of the char- 
acter of its time, as the best literature is always 
the best exponent of the age which brings it forth. 

In the study of English institutions, it is not 
wise to dwell at length upon conditions prior to the 



o Treatment 



Norman period, and indeed even the ordinary 
political events before the time of Egbert should 
be passed over rapidly. To the secondary pupil 
the details of what Milton called the "battles of 
the kites and crows " are dreary and unprofit- 
able : apocryphal martyrdoms, legends of doubt- 
ful authenticity, and scores of unpronounceable 
names are useless burdens to the healthful memory 
of a boy of sixteen, whose mind promptly refuses 
assimilation. But the origins of later institutions, 
so far as they appear in Anglo-Saxon times, are 
not uninteresting and may well be noticed. 

When institutions familiar to us in modern life 
are fairly established the pupil's interest is nat- 
urally awakened, and time is rightly devoted 
to their study. The jury, the offices of sheriff 
and coroner, and like matters, deserve attention ; 
and something may be done even with the devel- 
opment of the common law in early England. 
But, in all the work, effort should be made to 
understand institutions that have lived rather than 
those that have perished ; such study cannot fail 
to bring home a sense of our indebtedness to the 
past. It is unnecessary, however, to indicate 
here in detail how the successive steps in the 
development of English institutions and of English 
liberties may be brought out ; such a presentation 
would involve a longer treatment than can be given 



English Institutions 71 

here ; but it is not out of place to say that stress 
should be laid chiefly upon the important constitu- 
tional movements and the establishment of princi- 
ples which mark a stage of progress, and are 
preparations for institutions, principles, and ideas 
that are to follow. 

In teaching Enghsh constitutional history, it is 
the institutions of south Britain that demand chief 
attention; but in teaching the history of the 
nation, as apart from that of the state, it is essen- 
tial that the common practice of neglecting Welsh, 
Scottish, and Irish history be abandoned in Amer- 
ican schools; otherwise no idea is gained of the 
composite nature of the nation which has built up 
the British Empire, and spread abroad the knowl- 
edge of Enghsh institutions and the use of the 
Enghsh language. Even in studying the early 
history, care should be taken to bring out the fact 
that there were such people as the Welsh, Scots, 
and Irish; and, although it is not advisable to 
consider in any detail the history of these nations 
in later times, yet some of the more important 
events should be dwelt upon; the relationships 
with south Britain should be kept in mind; and 
such knowledge of their development should be 
given that the final welding of all into a single 
British kingdom becomes intelligible. 

It is very desirable that the expansion and the 



72 Treatment 

imperial development of Britain should receive 
adequate notice. School-books rarely lay suffi- 
cient emphasis upon this phase of the subject : 
the real meaning of the American Revolution 
is usually not disclosed ; Dettingen, Fontenoy, 
and Minden sometimes obscure Louisburg, Que- 
bec, and Plassey. Without Drake, Raleigh, Clive, 
and Gordon, English history of the last three 
centuries is not Enghsh history at all. The 
colonial system also, and the general colonial 
policy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
demand attention in American schools ; and the 
foundation of British dominion in India cannot 
rightly be made subordinate to party struggles in 
parliament or to ministerial successions. Finally, 
to trace the growth of the British Empire in the 
nineteenth century ; to see how the colonists of 
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South 
Africa have obtained and used the right of self- 
government, and how the East India Company's 
settlements have developed into an imperial 
dependency under the British crown, — these 
topics are more important than any study of 
ordinary party politics w;thin the old sea-girt 
realm of England. 

By paying attention to the continental relations 
of England it will be possible to review the more 
important movements of European history, and to 



Relative to European 73 

to give the pupil new views of their meanings. 
If these side-views of continental conditions are 
offered too frequently, the class may become con- 
fused, and lose sight even of the well-worn 
paths of English constitutional progress ; judicious 
reference and comparison, however, will not be 
distracting, but will assist the pupils in appre- 
ciating the meaning of what was going on within 
the four seas. A study of English feudalism 
will give an opportunity to review what has been 
learned of the continental characteristics of that 
institution. The crusades cannot be studied as if 
Richard I. were the only king who took the cross. 
Who can understand the quarrel between Henry I. 
and Anselm, if he has no knowledge of the contest 
between Gregory and Henry of Germany ? Can 
even the Norman conquest be known without 
some sense of who the Northmen were and what 
they had been doing .? Does one get the force of 
the great liberal movements of the seventeenth 
century without some slight comparison between 
the Charleses of England and the Louises of 
France ? Although this comparative method may 
be overdone, we believe that careful and judicious 
comparisons and illustrations will prove illuminat- 
ing, suggestive, and in all ways helpful. 



74 Treatment 

IV. American History 

If American history is studied, as the commit- 
tee recommends, in the last year of the secondary 
school, it should be taken up as an advanced sub- 
ject, with the purpose of getting a clear idea of the 
course of events in the building of the American 
Republic and the development of its political ideas. 
Its chief objects should be to lead the pupil to a 
knowledge of the fundamentals of the state and 
society of which he is a part, to an appreciation of 
his duties as a citizen, and to an intelligent, toler- 
ant patriotism. 

It is not desirable that much time should be de- 
voted to the colonial history. The period is espe- 
cially interesting if viewed as a chapter in the 
expansion of England, a chapter in the story of the 
struggle between the nations of western Europe 
for colonies, commerce, and dominion. It must be 
viewed, too, as a time when the spirit of self-suffi- 
ciency and self-determination was growing, — a 
spirit which accounts for the Revolution and for 
the dominating vigor of the later democracy. At- 
tention may be paid to the establishment of indus- 
trial conditions and of habits of industrial activity 
as explaining political differences in subsequent 
times, especially as explaining the divergence of 
North and South after constitutional union had 



American History 75 

been formed. Slight notice should be taken of 
military campaigns in any portion of the study, 
though the importance of intercolonial wars can 
easily be underestimated, and the main facts of 
other wars, especially, of course, the Revolutionary 
and the Civil war, cannot be neglected. 

In the study of American history it is especially 
desirable that the development of the political or- 
ganizations be clearly brought forth. Nothing 
should be allowed to obscure the leading features 
of our constitutional system. The pupil must see 
the characteristics of American political life and 
know the forms and methods, as well as the prin- 
ciples, of political activity. He must have knowl- 
edge of the ideals of American life, and must study 
the principles of American society as they have 
expressed themselves in institutions and embodied 
themselves in civic forms. 

Much has been said about the necessity of study- 
ing the social and industrial history of the United 
States, and some practical teachers have declared 
that chief stress should be laid upon social and 
economic features ^ of the past life of the people. 
Such a study is certainly very desirable ; the stu- 
dent should come to a realization of the nature of 
the problems of the industrial world about him, 

1 There is a marked difference between studying economic his- 
tory and studying economic features or conditions. 



76 Treatment 

and should see the gradual changes that have 
been wrought as the years have gone by. History 
should be made real to him through the study of the 
daily ordinary life of man, and he should be led to feel 
that only a very small portion of man's activities or 
strivings is expressed by legislatures, congresses, 
or cabinets; that, especially under a government 
such as ours, the industrial conditions, the bodily 
needs, the social desires, the moral longings of the 
people, determine ultimately, if not immediately, 
the character of the law and the nature of the gov- 
ernment itself. We do not think, however, that 
economic or social facts should be emphasized at 
the expense of governmental or political facts. 
It seems wise to say that the greatest aim of 
education is to impress upon the learner a sense 
of duty and responsibility, and an acquaintance 
with his human obligations ; and that a manifest 
function of the historical instruction in the school 
is to give to the pupil a sense of duty as a respon- 
sible member of that organized society of which 
he is a part, and some appreciation of its principles 
and its fundamental character. In other words, 
while industrial and social phases of progress 
should by no means be slighted, it is an absolute 
necessity that a course in American history should 
aim to give a connected narrative of political events 
and to record the gradual upbuilding of institu- 



Industrial and Social 77 

tions, the slow establishment of political ideals 
and practices. 

Fortunately, as we have already suggested, 
many of the most important events in our social 
and industrial history are so intimately connected 
with the course of our political history that the 
two subjects seem not two but one. Changes in 
modes of industry or in social conditions, improve- 
ments in methods of labor, intellectual and moral 
movements, have manifested themselves in po- 
litical action, have influenced party creeds, or in 
some other way affected the forms or the conduct 
of the body politic. In a democratic country, 
any important change in the life of the people is 
of importance in political history, because the 
people are the state. Many of the economic and 
social changes, therefore, can best be studied as 
they show themselves in organized effort or are 
embodied in political institutions. If one looks at 
political activities or endeavors to understand con- 
stitutions, without knowledge of the lives and 
hopes of the people, the strivings of trade and 
commerce, the influence of inventions and dis- 
coveries, the effects of immigration, he knows but 
little of the whence or the how, and deals with 
symbols, not with things. 

While we beHeve, then, that the chief aim should 
be to give the pupil knowledge of the progress of 



78 Treatment 

political institutions, ideas, and tendencies, .we 
believe also that he should know the economic 
phases of life ; that whenever possible, attention 
should be directed not merely to economic and 
social conditions, but to economic and social devel- 
opments ; and that those economic, industrial, or 
social modifications should receive chief attention 
which have permanently altered social organiza- 
tion, or have become imbedded in institutions, 
ideas, or governmental forms. We should in our 
study endeavor to see the full importance, because 
we see the results, of the fact that Virginia grew 
tobacco and South Carolina rice, and that the 
New Englanders were fishermen and went down 
to the sea in ships ; we should try to recognize the 
meanings of slavery and white servitude, of cotton 
and the sugar trade, of the steamboat, the rail- 
road, the telegraph, the rotary press, the sewing 
machine. We should see, if we can, how such 
things influenced human progress and had effect 
on the nature, organization, and destinies of the 
American people. 

Now a careful study like this is not possible for 
students in their early years. In the grades be- 
low the secondary school, use may well be made 
of mere descriptions of past times, of houses and 
apparel, of the snuff-boxes, wigs, and silken hose 
of our great-grandfathers ; for such pictures help 



Economic History 79 

to awaken the imagination, to furnish it with food, 
to bring home the idea that men and their sur- 
roundings have changed, and to prepare the mind 
for the later growth of historical power and capa- 
cities. ^ But though the pupil must know bygone 
conditions and must seek to get a vivid picture 
of the past, the ultimate aim of history is to dis- 
close not what was, but what became. Totally 
unrelated facts are of antiquarian rather than of 
historical interest. In the secondary school, then, 
and especially in the later years of the course, atten- 
tion must be paid to movements, and an effort 
must be made to cultivate the faculty for drawing 
truthful generalizations, for seeing and compre- 
hending tendencies. 

We hope that from this statement no one will 
get the idea that we are waging war on economic 
history, or the study of what the Germans have 
happily called '' culturgeschichter But we con- 

1 We recognize fully the historical value of many things that 
seem at first sight unimportant. When, for example, we are told 
that the old Federalists wore wigs and the Republicans did not, 
we recognize a fact that marks a change and symbolizes political 
creeds and party differences. Taine says that about the twentieth 
year of Elizabeth's reign the nobles gave up the shield and two- 
handed sword for the rapier, — "a little, almost imperceptible fact," 
he remarks, " yet vast, for it is like the change which sixty years 
ago made us give up the sword at court, to leave our arms swinging 
about in our black coats." 



8o Treatment 

tend that, since there is so much to be done in a 
single year, there is no time for the study of such 
past industrial and social conditior^s — though they 
may be indeed interesting phenomena — as stand 
unrelated, isolated, and hence meaningless, and 
are perhaps without real historical value. Time 
must rather be given to the important, to condi- 
tions which were fruitful of results, to movements, 
changes, and impulses in industrial as well as in 
political society. No study of economic forms or 
social phases should hide from view the political 
and social ideas for which our country stands, and 
which have been the developments of our history. 
We have entered upon this subject at some 
length in connection with a consideration of 
American history, because many of the state- 
ments seem important, and because much that is 
said, while peculiarly applicable to American his- 
tory, is likewise true of other fields. Especially 
in the study of English history should effort be 
made to connect economic and intellectual condi- 
tions with the progress of England, to look for 
changes in the succeeding centuries, and to see 
how political organization and social needs reacted 
one upon the other. And yet how often has Wat 
Tyler's insurrection been studied as a mere upris- 
ing of political malcontents endangering the safety 
or the bodily ease of young Richard II. ! How of- 



Civil Government 8i 

ten has the devastation of the North been studied 
as if it had a bearing only on the fortunes of the 
Norman dynasty !^ How often have inventions and 
discoveries been stated as merely isolated phenom- 
ena, — such changes, for example, as that marked 
by the use of pit-coal in the making of iron, as if 
they were of only scientific interest ! 

V. Civil Government 

Much time will be saved and better results ob- 
tained if history and civil government be studied 
in large measure together, as one subject rather 
than as two distinct subjects. We are sure that, 
in the light of what has been said in the earlier 
portions of this report about the desirability of 
school pupils' knowing their political surroundings 
and duties, no one will suppose that in what we 
here recommend we underestimate the value of 
civil government or wish to lessen the effective- 
ness of the study. What we desire to emphasize 
is the fact that the two subjects are in some re- 
spects one, and that there is a distinct loss of 
energy in studying a small book on American his- 
tory and afterward a small book on civil govern- 
ment, or vice versa, when by combining the two a 
substantial course may be given. 

In any complete and thorough secondary course 



82 Treatment 

in these subjects there must be, probably, a sepa- 
rate study of civil government, in which may be 
discussed such topics as municipal government, 
state institutions, the nature and origin of civil 
society, some fundamental notions of law and 
justice, and like matters ; and it may even be 
necessary, if the teacher desires to give a complete 
course and can command the time, to supplement 
work in American history with a formal study of 
the Constitution and the workings of the national 
government. But we repeat that a great deal of 
what is commonly called civil government can 
best be studied as a part of history. To know the 
present form of our institutions well, one should 
see whence they came and how they developed ; 
but to show origins, developments, changes, is the 
task of history, and in the proper study of his- 
tory one sees just these movements and knows 
their results. 

It would of course be foolish to say that the 
secondary pupil can trace the steps in the develop- 
ment of all our institutions, laws, political theories, 
and practices ; but some of them he can trace, 
and he should be enabled to do so in his course in 
American history. How it came about that we 
have a federal system of government rather than 
a centralized state ; what were the colonial begin- 
nings of our systems of local government ; how 



Government and History 83 

the Union itself grew into being; why the Con- 
stitution provided against general warrants ; why 
the first ten amendments were adopted ; why the 
American people objected to bills of attainder and 
declared against them in their fundamental law, — 
these, and a score of other questions, naturally 
arise in the study of history, and an answer to 
them gives meaning to our Constitution. Moreover, 
the most fundamental ideas in the political struc- 
ture of the United States may best be seen in 
a study of the problems of history. The nature 
of the Constitution as an instrument of govern- 
ment, the relation of the central authority to the 
states, the theory of state sovereignty or that of 
national unity, the rise of parties and the growth 
of party machinery, —these subjects are best 
understood when seen in their historical settings. 

But in addition to this, many, if not all, of the 
provisions of the Constitution may be seen in the 
study of history, not as mere descriptions written 
on a piece of parchment, but as they are em- 
bodied in working institutions. The best way to 
understand institutions is to see them in action; 
the best way to understand forms is to see them 
used. By studying civil government in connection 
with history, the pupil studies the concrete and the 
actual. The process of impeachment, the appoint- 
ing power of the president, the make-up of the 



84 Treatment 

cabinet, the power of the speaker, the organization 
of the territories, the adoption and purpose of the 
amendments, the methods of annexing territory, 
the" distribution of the powers of government and 
their working relations, indeed all the important 
parts of the Constitution that have been translated 
into existing, acting institutions, may be studied as 
they have acted. If one does not pay attention to 
such subjects as these in the study of history, 
what is left but wars and rumors of wars, partisan 
contentions and meaningless details ? 

We do not advise that text-books on civil govern- 
ment be discarded, even when there is no oppor- 
tunity to give a separate course in the subject. 
On the contrary, such a book should always be 
ready for use, in order that the teacher may prop- 
erly illustrate the past by reference to the present. 
If the pupils can make use of good books on the 
Constitution and laws, so much the better. What 
we desire to recommend is simply this, that in any 
school where there is no time for sound, substantial 
courses in both civil government and history, the 
history be taught in such a way that the pupil will 
gain a knowledge of the essentials of the political 
system which is the product of that history ; and 
that, where there is time for separate courses, they 
be taught, not as isolated, but as interrelated and 
interdependent subjects. Bishop Stubbs in a 



Teaching of Government 85 

memorable sentence has said, "The roots of the 
present lie deep in the past, and nothing in the 
past is dead to the man who would . learn how 
the present comes to be what it is." Though we 
must not distort the past in an effort to give mean- 
ing to the present, yet we can fully understand 
the present only by a study of the past ; and the 
past, on the other hand, is appreciated only by 
those who know the present. 



Methods of Instruction 

In the early part of this report, attention is 
called to the fact that there seems to be some 
agreement among teachers of history concerning 
the methods of teaching; and we have attributed 
this agreement in some measure to the recom- 
mendation of the Madison Conference, whose re- 
port has been widely read and used throughout the 
country. Doubtless there are many other reasons 
for the improvement of the last ten years, chief 
among which is the increased supply of well-trained 
teachers. There has been also a new recognition 
of the purpose of history teaching, a growing reali- 
zation on the part of teachers of why they teach 
the subject and of what they hope to accomplish. 
If one has distinctly in his mind the end that he 
seeks to gain, he will be likely to discover suitable 
means and methods of teaching. More important, 
therefore, than method, is object : means are val- 
ueless to one who who has no end to be attained. 
The teacher who is seeking means and methods 
should first inquire whether he is sure that he 
knows what he wishes to accomphsh. 

86 



Interest in Methods 87 

It is unnecessary for us to go into this subject 
at very great length. If teachers have been stimu- 
lated by the report of the Madison Conference, and 
have learned to obtain from it what is adapted to 
their wants, and to disregard what seems to them to 
be unsuited to their needs, they can continue to fol- 
low it. In spite of the six years of experience that 
have elapsed since that report was pubUshed, this 
committee will perhaps be no wiser in its recom- 
mendations and suggestions ; and if there is now a 
manifest drift toward what we may be suffered to 
call „ advanced " methods, the best plan may be to 
leave well enough alone, with the firm assurance 
that the best methods will be widely used only 
when there is a full realization of the purposes 
and the nature of the study. 

While discussing the value of historical work, 
we have necessarily considered the aims and ob- 
jects of instruction. The chief purpose is not to 
fill the boy's head with a mass of material, which 
he may perchance put forth again when a college 
examiner demands its production. Without under- 
estimating the value of historical knowledge, and 
deprecating nothing more than a readiness to ar- 
gue and contend about the meaning of facts that 
have not been established,^ we contend that the 

1 History, unlike some other subjects in the curriculum, is a 
subject to be studied for its own sake and not merely for discipli- 



88 Methods 

accumulation of facts is not the sole, or perhaps 
not the leading, purpose of study. No other sub- 
ject in the high-school curriculum, except history, 
is stigmatized as an information study simply, 
rather than an educational study. Not even 
arithmetic — beyond decimals and percentage — 
is looked upon as valuable for the stubble that it 
stores away in the head, where the brain has not 
been called into activity or taught to use the ma- 
terial which it is asked to retain. But for some 
unaccountable reason, it has been held that boys 
and girls must not think about historical material, 
or be taught to reason or be led to approach events 
with the historical spirit. The scientific spirit can 
be awakened and methods of scientific thinking 
cultivated ; power in handling language and an 
ability for grasping grammatical distinctions can be 
developed ; even the literary sense can be fostered 
and promoted ; but the historical sense, the begin- 
nings of historical thinking, it is sometimes gravely 

nary purposes. The information obtained by the study is a con- 
tinuous source of pleasure and profit. Moreover, no subject can 
have the best pedagogical results if its acknowledged purpose is 
not to acquire knowledge but to get training. The mind naturally 
seizes and uses information which is at once interesting and useful; 
above all, it grasps that which is interesting because it is useful. 
By what is said in the text, we wish to emphasize the disciplinary 
value of the study, but not to belittle its value for information and 
culture. 



Training 89 

said, cannot be expected ; all that one can do is to 
give information, in the hope that in some distant 
day pleasant and helpful reactions will take place 
within the brain. Fortunately, the number of per- 
sons who argue in this way has decreased and is 
decreasing, and we may well leave those that re- 
main to the intelligent teachers of history through- 
out the land, who are awake to the possibilities of 
their subject, and who see the boys and girls grow- 
ing in power and efficiency under their hands. ^ 

Pupils who can study physics and geometry, or 
read Cicero's orations, must be presumed to have 
powers of logic and capacity to follow argument. 
Teachers of English put into their pupils' hands 
such masterpieces as Burke's " Speech on Concili- 
ation with America " and Webster's " Reply to 
Hayne." It is certainly unwise to use such mate- 
rial for English work if it is impossible for boys 
and girls of sixteen to understand what these 
statesmen were talking about, or to see the force 

1 We may justly contend that an effort to store facts in pupils' 
heads often defeats its own ends. College professors who have 
looked over entrance examination papers for many years, as most 
members of this committee have done, are struck by the marvellous 
accumulation of misinformation which has been acquired and held 
with calm belief and placid assurance. We may seriously inquire 
whether instruction in method of looking at facts and training in 
thinking about them would not leave a greater residuum of actual 
information. 



go Methods 

of their arguments ; for, if language is conceded 
to be a vehicle of ideas, it cannot be studied as a 
thing apart, without reference to its content. And 
if Burke and Cicero and Patrick Henry and Daniel 
Webster can be understood in language work, it 
seems reasonable to hold that they can be under- 
stood in history work, and hence that pupils may 
fairly be asked to think of what they see and read. 

It is not our purpose to give minute and particu- 
lar directions concerning methods of historical in- 
struction. A short list of books from which teachers 
may obtain helpful suggestions for class-room work 
will be found in Appendix VII. to this report. In 
drafting the recommendations which follow here, we 
have had in mind only certain general methods 
which we think specially useful for bringing out 
the educational value of the study. 

I. We believe that in most cases the teacher 
should use a text-book. If the book is prepared by 
a practical teacher and a scholar, it is probably the 
product of much toil, which has been devoted to 
a consideration of proportion and order as well as 
to accuracy, and it is therefore likely to unfold the 
subject more systematically than a teacher can pos- 
sibly do unless he has wide training, long experi- 
ence, and, in addition, daily opportunity carefully to 
examine the field and to search out the nature of 
the problems that he is called upon to discuss. 



Text-Books 91 

Without the use of a text it is difficult to hold the 
pupils to a definite line of work : there is danger 
of incoherence and confusion. While, therefore, 
we strongly advise the use of material outside of 
the text, we feel that the use of the topical method 
alone will in the great majority of instances result 
in the pupils' having unconnected information. 
They will lose sight of the main current ; and it 
is the current and not the eddies which they 
should watch. 

In some classes, especially in the more advanced 
grades, it may be possible to use more than one 
text-book. " By preparing in different books, or, 
by using more than one book on a lesson, pupils 
will acquire the habit of comparison, and the no 
less important habit of doubting whether any one 
book covers the ground." ^ In an attempt to dis- 
cover the truth they may be led to study more 
widely for themselves, and will surely find that 
there are sources of information outside of the 
printed page. The use of more than one text will, 
however, often present many practical difficulties 
to the teacher ; and this will surely be the case 
unless he has the time and opportunity to master 
all the texts himself and to examine outside material 
with care. In most schools there is a decided ad- 
vantage in having one line along which the class 

1 Report of the Committee [of Ten] (Washington, 1893), 189. 



92 Methods 

may move. Often it may prove helpful to use 
supplementary texts, in order to amplfy and 
modify the regular class-book; this may be done 
by the teacher when comparison by the class might 
prove distracting.^ 

II. Material outside of the text-book should be 
used in all branches of historical study and in every 
year of the secondary, course. Life and interest 
may in this way be given to the work ; pupils may be 
introduced to good literature and be taught to han- 
dle books. This collateral material may be used in 
various ways, and of course much more should be 
expected of the later classes than of the earlier; 
indeed, there should be a consistent purpose to 
develop gradually and systematically this power of 
using books. Often, especially in the earlier years, 
the teacher will read to the class passages from en- 
tertaining histories. Younger pupils without previ- 
ous training should not be expected to find the books 

1 After this portion of the report, dealing with methods, was read, 
at the meeting of the American Historical Association, in 1898, 
one teacher expressed the opinion that the report did not suffi- 
ciently emphasize the oral recitations ; another, that we did not 
sufficiently emphasize written work ; another, that we did not 
sufficiently emphasize the value of more than one text -book. We 
do not wish to underestimate any means which any teacher finds 
suited to his needs and productive of good results. Teachers must 
of course use their own discretion as to how far various methods 
may be followed ; but we think that all of the ideas and plans here 
suggested will prove helpful. 



Reading 93 



that treat of certain topics, or to know how to find 
the portions desired. Let the pupil learn how to 
understand and use pages before he uses books ; 
and let him learn how to use one or two books 
before he is set to rummaging in a library. For 
example, a class in the first year of the secondary 
school may be asked to tell what is said of Mara- 
thon in Botsford's ''History of Greece," p. 121. 
A twelfth-grade class, properly trained, may be 
asked to compare Lecky's account of the Stamp 
Act with Bancroft's, or to find out what they can 
in the books of the library concerning the defects 
of the Articles of Confederation. 

III. Something in the way of written work 
should be done in every year of the secondary 
school. It is unnecessary to caution teachers 
against requiring the sort of work in the early 
years that may reasonably be expected in the 
later part of the course. Younger pupils, who 
have had little or no training in doing written work 
of this character, might be required simply to con- 
dense and put into their own language a few pages 
of Grote or Mommsen, or to write out in simple 
form some abstract of Thucydides's account of the 
fate of the Sicilian expedition, or of Herodotus's 
description of the battle of Thermopylae, or to do 
similar tasks. In the later years more difficult 
tasks may be assigned, demanding the use of sev- 



94 Methods 

eral books and the weaving together of various 
narratives or opinions. It may be said by some 
persons that such work as this is for the English 
teacher, not for the history teacher ; but it can 
hardly be asserted that skill in the use of historical 
books, practice in acquiring historical information, 
and the ability to put forth in one's own language 
what has been read, are not objects of historical 
training. 

IV. It may at times prove helpful to have 
written recitations or tests. Teachers have often 
found that this method secures accuracy and defi- 
niteness of statement. Some pupils who have 
difficulty in organizing and arranging the informa- 
tion which they possess, and who consequently are 
not so successful as others in oral recitations, of- 
ten succeed admirably in written exercises, and by 
their success are stimulated and encouraged to do 
thoughtful and systematic work. 

V. Many teachers have been aided in their work 
by requiring the class to keep note-books ; and the 
committee favors the adoption of this system, 
which has proved so serviceable in the study of 
the sciences. These books may contain analyses 
of the text, notes on outside matter presented in 
class, a list of books with which the pupil has 
himself become acquainted, and perhaps also some 
condensations of his reading. An analytical ar- 



Written Work 



95 



rangement of the more important topics that are 
discussed in the course of the study may also be 
placed in the note-book; this plan will help the 
student to see the different lines of development 
and change. For example, under the head of 
" Slavery " short statements may be inserted of 
the facts that have been learned from the text ; by 
so doing the pupil will have at the end of his 
work a condensed narrative of the introduction, 
growth, and effect of slavery, and will be led to 
see the continuity of the slavery question as he 
would probably be unable to see it by any other 
means. 

VI. Fortunately it is unnecessary in these latter 
days to call the teacher's attention to the use of 
maps, and to the idea that geography and history 
are inextricably interwoven. Most text-books now 
have a number of maps, all of which however are 
by no means faultless. Good wall-maps may be 
obtained at reasonable prices; and every school 
should have at least one good historical atlas. The 
class should use physical maps, as well as those 
showing political and national divisions, for often 
the simplest and most evident facts with which 
the pupil is well acquainted need to be forced 
sharply upon his attention in connection with 
history. The Nile, the Euphrates, the Tiber, the 
Rhine, the Thames, the Mississippi, the Alps, the 



96 Methods 

Pyrenees, the Alleghanies, — their very names call 
up to the mind of the historical scholar troops of 
facts and forces affecting the progress of the race 
and moulding the destinies of nations. The pupils 
should not lose sight of the physical causes that 
have acted in history any more than they should 
ignore the human causes ; and they must remember 
that, although history deals with the succession of 
events, there is always a place relation as well as a 
time relation. As new meaning is given to geog- 
raphy when physical conditions are seen in relation 
with human life, so reality is added to historical 
occurences and new interest is awakened in his- 
torical facts by the study of the theatre within 
which men acted and notable events took place. 
** Groupings of historical figures and scenes around 
geographical centres make these centres instinct 
with life and motion, while the centres themselves, 
binding the figures and scenes together, give them 
a new permanence and solidity.^ " The careful 
study of physical geography and of historical 
geography is of value, therefore, not only in 
bringing out the nature or the true import of facts, 
but in helping the pupils to retain information be- 
cause they see natural causes and relations, and 
because events are thus made to appear definite 
and actual. 

1 Hinsdale, How to Study and Teach History^ 99. 



Geography 97 

If these methods are to be followed, — as they 
must be if history is to be a study of high educa- 
tional value, — books for reference and reading are 
as necessary as is apparatus for efficient work in 
physics or chemistry. Not many years ago all 
subjects except " natural philosophy " were taught 
without the help of any material save a text-book 
for each pupil, and perhaps a few dusty cyclopae- 
dias often deftly concealed in a closet behind the 
teacher's desk. Great changes have been made ; 
nearly all schools now have some books, but even 
at the present time it is easier to get five thousand 
dollars for physical and chemical laboratories than 
five hundred dollars for reference books ; and even 
when libraries have been provided, their material 
is sometimes not wisely chosen, and they are often 
allowed to fall behind by a failure to purchase new 
and useful literature as it comes out. 

The library should be the centre and soul of all 
study in history and literature ; no vital work can 
be carried on without books to which pupils may 
have ready and constant access. Without these op- 
portunities historical work is likely to be arid, if not 
unprofitable ; there cannot be collateral reading, 
or written work of the most valuable sort, or study 
of the sources, or knowledge of illustrative ma- 
terial. Even a small expenditure of money may 
change the dull routine of historical study into 



98 Methods 

a voyage of pleasurable discovery, awakening the 
interest, the enthusiasm, and the whole mental 
power of the pupils. No school is so poor that 
something cannot be done in the way of collecting 
material. 

The first necessity of a school library is that 
it be accessible. It should be in the school build- 
ing, open during the whole of school hours and as 
much longer as possible ; it should be furnished 
with working tables and provided with good light, 
and so arranged that it serves, not as something 
helpful outside the school, but as the source and 
centre of inspiration, to which the class-room work 
is contributory. The books should be freely used, 
for a library is no longer considered a place for 
the preservation and concealment of books, but a 
centre from which they may be put into circula- 
tion, and where the best facilities are offered for 
acquiring information. The question as to whether 
the books should be left in open shelves or handed 
out by an attendant must be decided of course by 
the school authorities, in light of all the circum- 
stances ; but it must be remembered that the 
opportunity to touch and handle the volumes, to 
glance at their pages, to discover the subjects of 
which they treat, to look, as it were, into their 
faces, is of great value, and that more can be 
learned by a few minutes of famiUar intercourse 



Libraries 99 

with a book in the hand than by many inquiries of 
an attendant or by anxious searchings in a cata- 
logue. The fewer the barriers and obstacles in 
the way the better will be the results ; and the 
more will the pupil be tempted to refer to the 
authorities or to read the great masters in history 
and literature, an acquaintance with whose words, 
thoughts, and sentiments constitutes in itself no 
small part of education. 

In employing the library for historical purposes, 
care should be taken to teach the pupils how to use 
intelligently tables of contents and indexes, and 
also how to turn to their account the library cata- 
logues and the indexes to general and periodical 
literature. The teacher will remember that the 
habit of referring to authorities to settle doubtful 
points or to discover additional evidence is a most 
important part, not only of historical training, but 
of the outfit of an educated person, and that wide 
reading should bring breadth of view and also a 
broadening and deepening of the judgment. 

The well-equipped library should contain (i) 
good historical atlases and atlases of modern 
geography; (2) one or two historical handbooks, 
or dictionaries of dates ; (3) an ample supply of 
secondary histories, such as those of Holm, 
Mommsen, Lecky, Parkman ; with these may be 
classed, as especially useful, good, interesting hi- 



lOO Methods 

ographies, such as Dodge's " Alexander the Great," 
Stanhope's "Pitt"; (4) there should certainly be 
some collections of sources, many of which are 
now accessible ; and some of the recent leaflets and 
collections of extracts of primary and secondary 
material will be found of service ; (5) a good ency- 
clopaedia and one or two annual compendiums, 
such as the various political almanacs. 



Sources 

The use of sources in secondary work is now a 
matter of so much importance, that it seems to 
demand special and distinct treatment. We beheve 
in the proper use of sources for proper pupils, with 
proper guarantees that there shall also be secured 
a clear outline view of the whole subject studied; 
but we find ourselves unable to approve a method 
of teaching, sometimes called the " source method," 
in which pupils have in their hands little more than 
a series of extracts, for the most part brief, and 
not very closely related. The difficulty with this 
system is, that while it suggests the basis of 
original record upon which all history rests, on the 
other hand it expects valuable generalizations from 
insufficient bases. Within the covers of one book 
it is impossible to bring together one hundreth part 
of the material which any careful historical writer 
would examine for himself before coming to a con- 
clusion ; and it is not to be expected that inexperi- 
enced and immature minds can form correct notions 
without some systematic survey of the field. In- 
deed the attempts to teach history wholly from the 



I02 Sources 

sources ignore the fact that the actual knowledge of 
the facts of history in the minds of the most highly 
trained teachers of history, comes largely from sec- 
ondary books ; it is only in limited fields, where a 
large mass of material can be examined and sifted, 
that historians and teachers can safely rely for their 
information entirely on sources, and even there they 
find it useful to refer to the secondary work of other 
writers for new points of view. 

The first essential, then, for any practical use of 
sources by pupils, is that their work shall be 
done in connection with a good text-book, in which 
the sequence and relation of events can be made 
clear. The aim of historical study in the secon- 
dary school, let it be repeated, is the training of 
pupils, not so much in the art of historical investi- 
gation as in that of thinking historically. Pupils 
should be led to grasp facts and to see them in 
relations, for one who has been taught to establish 
certain facts with unerring accuracy may still be 
unable to understand the historical significance of 
those facts. 

In the second place, we disclaim any confidence 
in *' investigation " by pupils, if by investigation 
is meant a mental process of the same order as that 
of the practised historian and the special student 
of a limited field, or of the teacher preparing ma- 
terial for his classes. In our judgment, sources 



Use of Text-Book 103 

are not intended to be either the sole or the princi- 
pal materials for school study. There is, indeed, a 
close analogy between the proposed processes of 
historical study and those of the study of natural 
science. In physics, for example, it has been 
thought expedient to require a well-ordered text- 
book in connection with a series of experiments ; 
yet physics cannot be efficiently taught unless the 
pupil has some contact with materials, not because 
they form the only foundation of his knowledge, 
but because he learns to look for himself, and to 
understand that the knowledge which he receives 
at second-hand must be based upon patient investi- 
gation by somebody else. 

By the study of properly selected materials, the 
pupil realizes that historical characters were living 
persons, and he learns to distinguish between them 
and the x and y of algebra or the formulas of 
physics. When one reads the loving letter written 
from before Antioch by Count Stephen of Blois 
some eight hundred years ago,^ in which he charges 
his wife to do right and to remember her duty to her 
children and her vassals, one realizes that the Cru- 
saders were real men, imbued with many of the 
purposes, hopes, and sentiments with which men 
of the present day are moved and influenced. 

1 Translated in Letters of the Crusaders ( University of Pennsyl- 
vania Translations and Reprints^, 5-8. 



I04 Sources 

The use of sources which we advocate is, there- 
fore, a Hmited contact with a Hmited body of mate- 
rials, an examination of which may show the child 
the nature of the historical process, and at the same 
time may make the people and events of bygone 
times more real to him. We believe that some 
acquaintance with sources vitalizes the subject, 
and thus makes it easier for the teacher and more 
stimulating for the pupil. But all sources are not 
of equal value for this purpose ; some of those 
which are very important for more mature students 
are too dry and unattractive to be useful for 
younger persons. John Adams's '' Discourses of 
Davila " is a source, though thought exceedingly 
dull even in his generation. Abigail Adams's 
letters to her husband, complaining of the fall of 
continental currency, are equally valuable as 
sources, and much more interesting. 

Since discrimination in the selection of sources 
is of so much importance, the first criterion is, that 
authorities be chosen whose authenticity is beyond 
dispute. It is not worth while to introduce chil- 
dren to the controversies over the voyages of John 
and Sebastian Cabot ; or to the arguments for and 
against the truthfulness of John Smith's account of 
his rescue by Pocahontas ; or to the authorship of 
the letters found in the saddle-bags of Charles I. 
There is no difficulty in obtaining an abundance 



Limitations 105 

of suggestive sources, about the value of which 
historians will agree and around which no inter- 
minable controversy is waging. Pains should also 
be taken to recommend the sources that may 
reasonably be brought within the knowledge of 
pupils ; it is of no use to refer to rarities or to 
texts long out of print. 

In the next place, few documents, in the usual 
significance of that term, are very useful in the 
school-room. A capitulary of Charlemagne, Magna 
Charta, a colonial charter, or the Constitution of 
the United States may with careful explanation 
be made clear; but it is difficult to make them 
attractive. The growth of a nation, the enlarge- 
ment of its political ideas, may be measurable by 
young intellects, but not the registration of that 
growth in great political documents. And yet 
even documents may be occasionally used. There 
seems to be no good reason for merely reading 
about the Declaration of Independence without 
seeing the printed instrument itself, or talking 
about the Ordinance of 1787 or the Proclamation 
of Emancipation without knowledge of the texts. 

There is, however, a large body of material of 
another kind which is as trustworthy as constitu- 
tional documents and is much more attractive. 
Such are books of travels, which from Herodotus 
down to James Bryce have been one of the most 



io6 Sources 

entertaining and suggestive sources on the social 
and intellectual phenomena of history. Of equal 
interest, and perhaps of greater value, are the 
actual journals and letters of persons contemporary 
with the events which they describe. Such are 
Cicero's "Epistles," Luther's *' Letters," Pepys' 
" Diary," Bradford's ** History," and the more 
intimate writings of statesmen like Henry VHL 
of England and Henry IV. of France, Frederick 
the Great, Franklin, Washington, and Gladstone. 
These are unfailing sources of historical informa- 
tion, and they give in addition a personal and 
human interest to the subjects which they illus- 
trate. 

In dealing with young minds which are rapidly 
opening, it is of special importance to choose 
books or extracts which have a literary value. 
The annals of the race are founded on first-hand 
accounts of historical events, many of which are 
written in such a fashion as to be worth reading 
aside from their historical value. Such are, for 
example, Einhard's '* Life of Charlemagne " ; the 
naive accounts of the foundation of the Swiss Re- 
public in 1292 ; the journals of the early voyagers 
to the Western world ; the table-talk of Bismarck ; 
the farewell letters of John Brown ; and the memo- 
randa of Lincoln's few brief speeches. Such 
material used in schools gives part of the training 



( Topical Work 107 

and enjoyment to be had from good literature, and 
at the same time furnishes illustrations that make 
the text-book of history sparkle with human 
life. 

In connection with topical work, the pupils may 
with special advantage make use of the sources. 
To the child such work is as fresh as though it 
had never been undertaken by any other mind. 
In comparing the statements of various sources 
and arriving at a conclusion from taking them to- 
gether, the pupil gets a valuable training of judg- 
ment. He must not suppose that he is making a 
history, or that his results are comparable with 
those of the trained historian ; but he may have 
an intellectual enjoyment of the same kind as 
that of the historical writer. The committee is 
fully aware of the difficulty of carrying on such 
methods as are here suggested ; they require advan- 
tageous circumstances and material which is easily 
handled and with which the teacher has decided 
familiarity. As has been pointed out above, 
written work must not be the only or even 
the principal employment of the pupil, but in 
the preparation of written topics much may be 
gained by dealing with sources, if a sufficient 
variety is available. Wherever written work is 
required, therefore, it is desirable to have some 
sources, to be used not merely for help in writing 



io8 Sources 

but for reference. In this way the pupil may- 
get an idea of the difficulties of ascertaining his- 
torical truth, and of the necessity for impartiality 
and accuracy. 

Besides the sources which have come down to 
us in written form and are reproduced upon the 
printed page, there is another important class of his- 
torical materials which is of great assistance in giv- 
ing reality to the past, — namely, actual, concrete 
remains, such as exist in the form of old buildings, 
monuments, and the contents of museums. Many 
schools have direct access to interesting survivals 
of this sort, while the various processes of pictorial 
reproduction have placed abundant stores of such 
material within reach of every teacher. The ex- 
cellent illustrations of many recent text-books may 
be supplemented by special albums, such as are 
used in French and German schools, and by the 
school's own collections of engravings and photo- 
graphs cut from magazines or procured from 
dealers.^ Some schools have also provided sets 

1 Selections from the Perry prints, and the cheap series of pho- 
tographic reproductions issued by various American houses, are 
always available at a very moderate price, and have found a place 
in many schools. Good types of inexpensive foreign albums are 
Seemann's Kunsthistorische Bilderbogen and the Albums Histo- 
riques of Parmentier (Paris, Hachette). Holzel in Vienna pub- 
lishes Langl's Bilder zur Geschichle;Q. set of sixty-two wall pictures 
of the great structures of all ages, 



Illustrative 109 

of lantern slides. Of course in order to entitle 
such illustrations to serious use and to the rank of 
historical sources they must be real pictures, — 
actual reproductions of buildings, statues, contem- 
porary portraits, views of places, etc., — and not 
inventions of modern artists. It is easy to make 
too much of illustrations and thus reduce history 
to a series of dissolving views ; but many excellent 
teachers have found the judicious use of pictures 
helpful in the extreme, not merely in arousing 
interest in the picturesque aspects of the subject, 
but in cultivating the historical imagination and in 
giving definiteness and vividness to the pupil's 
general ideas of the past. An appeal to the eye 
is of great assistance in bringing out the charac- 
teristic differences between past and present, and 
thus in checking that tendency to project the 
present into the past which is one of the most 
serious obstacles to sound views of history. The 
chief danger in the use of pictorial material lies in 
giving too much of it instead of dwelling at length 
on a few carefully chosen examples. 

To sum up this part of the subject, the com- 
mittee looks upon sources as adjuncts to good text- 
book work, as something which may be used for a 
part of the collateral reading and may also form 
the basis of some of the written work. Such use 
of material, with proper discrimination in choosing 



no Sources 

the sources, will add to the pleasure of the pupil, 
and will by sharpness of outline fix in his mind 
events and personalities that will slip away if he 
uses the text-books alone. 



Intensive Study 



That we have not dwelt at any length upon the 
desirability of devoting time to what is termed by 
the Madison Conference "intensive study," is 
because we do not see how in many schools suf- 
ficient time can be given to such work, and not 
because we advise against the adoption of that 
plan of work if there is time and opportunity in 
the school course. Indeed, we believe that the 
careful examination of a very limited period is 
highly beneficial. By intensive study we do not 
mean original work in the sense in which the word 
" original " is used in advanced college classes ; 
we mean simply the careful and somewhat pro- 
longed study of a short period. The shorter the 
period and the longer the time devoted to it, 
the more intensive the study will be. Perhaps in 
the courses in English and American history, time 
may be found to study one or two periods with 
special care and attention, so that the pupil may 
have exceptional opportunities to read the best 
secondary authorities, and even to examine pri- 



112 Intensive Study 

mary materiaL For example, in English history- 
it may prove possible to give two or three weeks, 
instead of two or three days, to a study of the im- 
portant events and meanings of the Common- 
wealth, or to the ideas and progress of the whole 
Puritan movement. In American history it may 
be wise to study for a considerable time such sub- 
jects as the causes of the Revolution, or the Con- 
federation and the formation of the Constitution, 
or the chief events of the decade from 1850 to 
i860. When this plan of selecting a period or 
a topic for intensive examination is possible, the 
pupils can gain great advantage by the oppor- 
tunity of delving deeper into the subject than is 
possible when all parts of the work are studied 
with equal thoroughness or superficiality : they 
can read more in the secondary material, can get 
a peep at the sources, and thus come to a fuller 
appreciation of what history is and how it is writ- 
ten. Only when good working facilities are at 
hand, however, and the teacher, knowing the ma- 
terial, has time to guide his pupils and give them 
constant aid and attention, will this plan prove 
very helpful. 



The Need of Trained Teachers 

If history is to take and hold its proper place in 
the school curriculum, it must be in the hands of 
teachers who are thoroughly equipped for the task 
of bringing out its educational value. It is still 
not very unusual to find that history is taught, if 
such a word is appropriate, by those who have 
made no preparation, and that classes are some- 
times managed — we hesitate to say instructed — 
by persons who do not profess either to be pre- 
pared or to take interest in the subject. In one 
good school, for example, history a short time ago 
was turned over to the professor of athletics, not 
because he knew history, but apparently in order 
to fill up his time. In another school a teacher 
was seen at work who evidently did not have 
the first qualifications for the task; when the ex- 
aminer inquired why this teacher was asked to 
teach history when she knew no history, the an- 
swer was that she did not know anything else. 
As long as other subjects in the course are given 
to speciaUsts, while history is distributed here and 
I 113 



114 Trained Teachers 

there to fill up interstices, there can be no great 
hope for its advancement. Fortunately, however, 
this condition of things is disappearing as history 
gradually finds its way to a place beside such sub- 
jects as Latin and mathematics, which claim a pre- 
scriptive right to first consideration. 

Doubtless to teach history properly is a difficult 
task. It requires not only wide ' information and 
accurate knowledge, but a capacity to awaken 
enthusiasm and to bring out the inner meanings 
of a great subject. Accuracy and definiteness 
must be inculcated in the pupil, and he must be 
led to think carefully and soberly ; but he must 
also be tempted to range beyond the limits of the 
text and to give rein to his imagination. Pupils 
often complain that, while in other studies a lesson 
can be thoroughly mastered, in history every topic 
seems exhaustless. Teachers are constantly con- 
fronted with the same difficulties. So many 
problems arise and demand attention ; so diffi- 
cult is it to hold the pupil to definite facts, and 
yet help him to see that he is studying a scene in 
the great drama of human life which has its per- 
petual exits and entrances ; so hard a task is it to 
stimulate the imagination while one is seeking to 
cultivate the reason and the judgment, that the 
highest teaching power is necessary to complete 
success. 



Knowledge 115 

The first requisite for good teaching is knowl- 
edge. The teacher's duty is not simply to see that 
the pupils have learned a given amount, or that 
they understand the lesson, as one uses the word 
" understand " when speaking of a demonstration 
in geometry or an experiment in physics. His 
task is to bring out the real meaning and import 
of what is learned by adding illustrations, showing 
causes and suggesting results, to select the impor- 
tant and to pass over the unimportant, to empha- 
size essentials, and to enlarge upon significant facts 
and ideas. A person with a meagre information 
cannot have a wide outlook; he cannot see the 
relative importance of things unless he actually 
knows them in their relations. 

But knowledge of facts alone is not enough. In 
historical work pupils and teacher are constantly 
engaged in using books. These books the teacher 
must know ; he must know the periods which they 
cover, their methods of treatment, their trustworth- 
iness, their attractiveness, their general utility for 
the purposes of young students. He must have 
skill in handling books and in gleaning from them 
the information which he is seeking, because it is 
just this skill which he is trying to give to his 
pupils. No one would seriously think of putting 
in charge of a class in manual training a person 
who had himself never shoved a plane or measured 



ii6 Trained Teachers 

a board. To turn over a class in history to be in- 
structed by a person, who is not acquainted with 
the tools of the trade and has had no practice in 
manipulating them, is an equal absurdity. 

A successful teacher must have more than mere 
accurate information and professional knowledge. 
He needs to have a living sympathy with the tale 
which he tells. He must know how to bring 
out the dramatic aspects of his story. He must 
know how to awaken the interest and atten- 
tion of his pupils, who will always be alert and 
eager if they feel that they are learning of the actual 
struggles and conflicts of men who had like pas- 
sions with ourselves. Though stores of dates and 
names must be at the teacher's command, these are 
not enough. He must have had his own imagina- 
tion fired and his enthusiasm kindled ; he must 
know the sources of historical knowledge and the 
springs of historical inspiration ; he must know the 
literature of history and be able to direct his pupils 
to stirring passages in the great historical masters ; 
he must know how to illumine and brighten the 
page by -readings from literature and by illustra- 
tions from art. 

" It were far better," says Professor Dicey, " as 
things now stand, to be charged with heresy, or 
even to be found guilty of petty larceny, than to fall 
under the suspicion of. lacking historical-minded- 



Point of View 117 

ness, or of questioning the universal validity of the 
historical method." To cultivate historical-minded- 
ness, to teach pupils to think historically and to 
approach facts with the historical spirit, — this is 
the chief object of instruction in any field of his- 
tory. But unless the teacher has had practice in 
dealing with facts, unless he has acquired per- 
spective, unless he has become historical-minded 
and knows himself what the historical method is, 
he cannot instruct his pupils. These character- 
istics cannot be absorbed from a text-book in an 
hour or two before the recitation ; they are the 
products of time and toil. 

Possibly the day is far distant when all teachers 
in this country will be prepared for their duties by 
a long course of training such as is required of a 
teacher in European schools ; but there are a few 
evidences that this time is slowly approaching. 
Beyond all question, some of the best teachers in 
our secondary schools are almost wholly self- 
trained ; some of them are not college graduates. 
But these exceptions do not prove that advanced 
collegiate training and instruction are undesirable. 
In teaching a vital subject Hke history, much de- 
pends upon the personality of the teacher, upon his 
force, insight, tact, sympathy, upon qualities that 
cannot be imparted by the university courses or 
by prolonged research. Though all this be true. 



ii8 Trained Teachers 

every teacher should have had some instruction in 
methods of teaching, and should have learned from 
precept what are the essentials of historical study 
and historical thinking; and — what is of much 
greater importance — he should have so worked 
that he knows himself what historical facts are 
and how they are to be interpreted and arranged. 
The highly successful teacher in any field of work 
needs to be a student as well as a teacher, to be in 
touch with the subject as a growing, developing, 
and enlarging field of human knowledge. 



College Entrance Requirements^ 

Any consideration of college entrance require- 
ments presents many difficulties ; but probably no 
field of work offers greater problems than does that 
of history, because the schools have no common 
understanding as to the amount of history that 
should be offered in the curriculum, and because the 
universities differ materially in their requirements. 
The first fundamental fact to be remembered is 
that a very large percentage of secondary pupils do • 
not go to college, and that in a very great ma- 
jority of schools the courses must be adapted 
primarily for the pupils who finish their study with 

1 In 1896, the National Educational Association appointed a 
committee to consider the subject of college entrance requirements, 
and to report a scheme of uniform requirements. At the request 
of that committee, the American Historical Association appointed 
the Committee of Seven to draft a scheme of college entrance re- 
quirements in history. The portion of our report that here follows 
was prepared with that purpose in mind ; and substantially similar 
recommendations have already been made to Superintendent Night- 
ingale, as chairman of the committee of the National Educational 
Association. 

ri9 



I20 Entrance Requirements 

the secondary school. It is often asserted that the 
course which fits pupils for college is equally well 
adapted to the uses of those who do not go to 
college. We do not care to argue this question, 
although we doubt very much if it be true that the 
requirements laid down for entrance to college, 
requirements which still bear the mark of the old 
regime, are likely to furnish the best equipment for 
the work and play of every-day life. Whether 
this be true or not, it is certainly wrong to shape 
secondary courses primarily with a view to college 
needs. In the great majority of schools the cur- 
riculum must be prepared with the purpose of 
developing boys and girls into young men and 
women, not with the purpose of fitting them to 
meet entrance examinations or of filling them with 
information which some faculty thinks desirable as 
a forerunner of college work. Many of the acade- 
mies and some of the high schools can without 
much trouble meet the artificial requirements of 
the colleges; but a great majority of the high 
schools and some of the academies have great dif- 
ficulty ; and it is an almost impossible task so to 
arrange the programme that pupils can be fitted 
for more than one institution.^ 

i For example, in a catalogue of a good high school, — a school 
rather large than small, and well-equipped with teachers, — we 
find these typical statements : that a pupil may prepare in that school 



Fitting Schools 121 

For this reason we welcome the efforts of the 
committee of the National Educational Associa- 
tion to simplify and unify college entrance re- 
quirements. We beUeve, however, that the first 
requisite of a successful accomplishment of this 
task is a recognition of the fact that the great 
majority of schools are not fitting-schools for 
college ; and it seems to us that any rigid and 
inelastic regime, which does not take into consid- 
eration the fact that schools are working in many 
different environments and are subject to different 
limitations and conditions, cannot be very widely 
accepted or prove useful for any length of time. 
We venture to suggest, therefore, that in any 
effort to simplify the situation by reheving the 
schools from the burden of trying to meet college 
requirements, two things are essential ; one is, that 
the fundamental scope and purpose of the major 
part of the secondary schools be regarded; the 
other, that such elasticity be allowed that schools 
may fit pupils for college and yet adapt them- 
selves to some extent to local environment and 
local needs. ^ 

for one of several universities, but that at the beginning of the 
second year he should know what he intends to do ; and that a 
failure to choose accurately in any one semester involves the loss 
of a year. 

1 It does not seem wise, even if it be possible, to outline the 
same rigid entrance requirements for the University of California, 



122 Entrance Requirements 

We feel justified, therefore, as students and 
teachers, in marking out what we think is the 
best curriculum in history, in discussing the edu- 
cational value of the study, in emphasizing the 
thought that history is peculiarly appropriate in 
a secondary course, which is fashioned with the 
thought of preparing boys and girls for the duties 
of daily life and intelligent citizenship, and in 
dwelling upon methods for bringing out the peda- 
gogical effect of historical work. It seems to us 
that, in consideration of the value and importance 
of historical work, and in light of the fact that 
so many thousands of pupils are now engaged in 
historical study, the colleges should be ready to 
admit to their list of requirements a liberal amount 
of history ; but we do not feel that we should seek 
to lay down hard-and-fast entrance requirements in 
history and ask the colleges or the committee of 
the National Educational Association to declare in 
favor of an inflexible regime. 

For convenience of statement we have adopted, 
in the recommendations which follow, the term 
**unit" ; by one unit we mean either one year of 
historical work wherein the study is given five 

University of Kansas, University of North Carolina, Yale, Har- 
vard, Tulane, and a hundred others. This policy would mean that 
secondary schools everywhere throughout the country must dis- 
regard local conditions ajid yield tp am outside force. 



Recommendations 123 

times per week, or two years of historical work 
wherein the study is given three times per week. 
We have thought it best to take into consideration 
the fact that different colleges have now not only 
different requirements, but also entirely different 
methods of framing and proposing requirements. 
It has not seemed wise, therefore, to outline his- 
torical courses on the supposition that all colleges 
would at once conform to a uniform arrange- 
ment. 

1. If a college or a scientific school has a sys- 
tem of complete options in college entrance re- 
quirements, that is, if it accepts a given number of 
years' work, or units, without prescribing specific 
subjects of study (as at Leland Stanford Univer- 
sity), we recommend that four units in history be 
accepted as an equivalent for a like amount of 
work in other subjects. Likewise, that one, two, 
or three units in history be accepted. 

2. If a college or a scientific school requires a 
list of certain prescribed studies, and also demands 
additional subjects, to be chosen out of an optional 
list (as at Harvard University), we recommend 
that one unit of history be placed on the list of 
definitely prescribed studies, and that one, two, or 
three units of history be placed among the optional 
studies. 

3. If a college or a scientific school has rigid 



124 Entrance Requirements 

requirements without options (as at Yale College 
and the Sheffield Scientific School), we recommend 
that at least one unit of history be required for 
entrance. 

These recommendations do not seem to us un- 
reasonable, and we do not believe that their adop- 
tion would impose any burden upon college or 
preparatory schools. If the traditional requirements 
in other subjects need to be diminished in order to 
allow one unit of history in any regime of rigid 
requirements, we do not think that such diminution 
is unwise in light of the fact that history is now 
generally studied, and that the training obtained 
from historical work is an essential of good sec- 
ondary education. It will be seen from the state- 
ment which follows (under 4), that we do not 
recommend any particular field or period of his- 
tory as preferable to all others for the purpose 
of such requirements ; to constitute this unit any 
one of the periods or blocks of history previously 
mentioned may be selected. 

4. Where a college has several distinct courses 
leading to different degrees, and has different 
groups of preparatory studies, each group pre- 
paring for one of the college courses (as at the 
University of Michigan), the use to be made of 
history requires more detailed exposition. In one 
of these preparatory courses the ancient languages 



Units 125 

receive chief attention ; in a second, a modern lan- 
guage is substituted for one of the ancient lan- 
guages ; in a third, the chief energy is devoted to 
natural sciences ; in a fourth, main stress is laid 
upon history and English language and literature. 
The general recommendations given above will aid 
somewhat in outlining preparatory courses in his- 
tory when such definite routes for admission to 
college are marked out : — 

A. We believe that in each preparatory course 
there should be at least one unit of history. This 
recommendation means that classical students 
should have at least one full year of historical 
work. A course which purports to deal with 
the " humanities " cannot afford to be without 
one year's work in a study whose sole theme is 
humanity. When four years are given to Latin, 
two or more to Greek, two or three to mathe- 
matics, one, or perchance two, to science, some 
room should be found for history, even if the time 
given to other studies be diminished. If we take 
for granted the fact that the great majority of sec- 
ondary pupils do not go to college, can we declare 
that they should go out into life with no knowl- 
edge of the humanities save that acquired by the 
study of the Greek and Latin tangues ? 

To decide what field of history should be chosen 
is a matter of considerable difficulty. We believe 



126 Entrance Requirements 

it desirable that pupils should know the life and 
thought of Greece and Rome and the development 
of their civiHzation ; that they should study the 
great facts of European history after the downfall 
of the Roman Empire ; that they should have 
some knowledge of how England grew to be a 
great empire and English liberty developed; and 
that they should come to know their own political 
surroundings by studying American history and 
government. We hesitate, therefore, to recom- 
mend that any one particular field be chosen to the 
exclusion of the rest; and yet we think that far 
better educational results can be secured by de- 
voting a year to a limited period than by attempt- 
ing to cover the history of the world in that length 
of time. We believe that it is more important 
that pupils should acquire knowledge of what his- 
tory is and how it should be studied than that they 
should cover any particular field. 

Perhaps it is not impossible, in connection with 
the study of Greek and Latin, to pay such atten- 
tion to the growth of Greece and Rome that the 
pupils may be led to an appreciation of the char- 
acter and essential nature of ancient civilization. 
This is one of the great ends of historical work ; 
and if the humanities can thus be humanized, 
there will be less need of prescribing Greek or 
Roman history as a distinct subject for classical 



Various Courses 127 

students/ and some other historical field may 
then be chosen. We cannot be sure, however, 
that such methods of teaching the classics will 
prevail; and we must content ourselves with 
recommending one of the four blocks or periods 
which are marked out in the earlier portions of 
this paper, without designating any particular 
one. 

B. The secondary course, sometimes called the 
Latin course, in which a modern language takes 
the place of Greek, presents nearly the same 
problems as the classical course. It does not 
afford much time for the study of history ; we 
therefore recommend that some one of the four 
blocks mentioned above be selected. 

C. In the scientific secondary course more op- 
portunity for historical study is often allowed, and 
here two units of history may be given. At 
least one of them will naturally be a modern field, 
and yet it may be said that it is highly desir- 
able that scientific pupils should by the study of 
ancient history obtain something of the culture 
which is not wrongly supposed to come from the 
study of classical civilization. 

1 That the desirability of such a method is recognized by many 
classical teachers is shown, for example, by the paper by Professor 
Clifford Moore on " How to Enrich the Classical Course, published 
in the School Review , September, 1898. 



128 Entrance Requirements 

D, The fourth secondary course, commonly 
called the English course, should have history for 
its backbone, inasmuch as it is a study peculiarly 
capable of being continued throughout the four 
years, and of offering that opportunity for con- 
tinuous development which the classical pupil 
obtains from the prolonged study of Latin. We 
strongly advise that sustained effort be devoted to 
history in order that this course may have a certain 
consistency and unity. There are already schools 
that offer history for four years, and give four full 
units consisting substantially of the four blocks 
we have outlined. If the four full units can- 
not be given, it may be well to offer history only 
three times a week in one of the four years. If 
only three years can be devoted to the study, one of 
the four blocks must, as we have already said, be 
omitted, or two fields must be compressed in some 
such manner as that suggested in the earlier 
portion of this report.^ 

The general recommendations under this head 
may then be summed up as follows : id) for the 
classical course, one unit of history, to consist 
of one of the four blocks previously mentioned; 
(b) for the Latin course, the same ; {c) for the sci- 
entific course, two units consisting of any two of 
the blocks ; id) for^the English course, three units 

1 See above, p. 43. 



Minimum 129 

consisting of any three of the blocks, or consisting 
of two blocks and a combination of two others. 
We strongly recommend that four years of history 
be given in this course, in order to make history 
one of the central subjects. 

It should be said in conclusion that, in demand- 
ing but one unit of history as the minimum require- 
ment for entrance to a college or a scientific school, 
the committee does not wish to be understood as 
expressing its approval of this amount as an ade- 
quate course in history for secondary schools. In 
this portion of the report we have been obliged to 
work within the limits of the systems of entrance 
requirements that now prevail, and to frame 
recommendations that may be adapted to existing 
conditions ; but we do not believe that a single 
unit of history constitutes a sufficient course, 
viewed with reference either to the relative impor- 
tance of the subject, or to the possibility of realiz- 
ing the aims of historical instruction within the 
time that would thus be at the teacher's disposal. 
The arguments for the necessity of a comprehen- 
sive and substantial course in history have been 
presented at length in the earUer sections of this 
report ; and though it may not at present be feasi- 
ble for every college to require more than one unit 
of history, the committee believes that two units 
should constitute the minimum amount offered in 



130 Entrance Requirements 

any school, and it maintains that a still more 
extended course in history has claims quite equal 
to those that may be urged on behalf of any other 
study in the secondary curriculum. 



Entrance Examinations 

One subject connected with college entrance 
requirements has pecuHar importance in connec- 
tion with the study of history, namely, that of 
entrance examinations. Higher institutions that 
admit students on the basis of certificates need 
have no administrative difficulty in giving large 
recognition to history as a preparatory subject ; 
but in colleges and universities that can be entered 
only after passing examinations, the problem is 
somewhat different. As has been emphasized else- 
where in this report, the utility of historical study 
lies not only in the acquisition of certain important 
facts, but in great measure in its indirect results in 
training the powers of discrimination and judg- 
ment ; it will often happen that pupils who have 
profited largely from their study of history will, 
especially after two or* three years have elapsed, 
show surprising lacimce in their stores of historical 
information. While a course in history should be 
progressive and build steadily upon what has gone 
before, one stage does not depend so immediately 



Examinations 131 

upon the preceding, and involve so persistent a 
review of earlier work, as is the case in language 
and mathematics ; and besides, growth in power 
of historical thinking is much harder to measure 
than progress in mathematical knowledge or in 
linguistic facility. These difficulties are present in 
some degree, even when the candidate is examined 
on work done in history in the last year of the 
secondary school ; but they become exceedingly 
serious when the subject has been studied some 
years before, or when the course in history covers 
two, three, or four years of the period of secondary 
instruction. 

The remedy, in our opinion, lies, not in the ex- 
clusion or unnatural restriction of history as a sub- 
ject for entrance, but in the reform of methods of 
examination in history ; if the present system of 
entrance examination does not — and it generally 
does not — properly test the qualifications of can- 
didates in history, it is time to consider how it may 
be changed. Certainly nothing has done more to 
discredit history as a subject for college entrance 
than the setting of papers which demand no more 
preparation than a few weeks' cram. The sug- 
gestions which follow are offered in the hope, not 
that they will afford a final solution of the problem, 
but that they may prove helpful in bringing about 
a more just and adequate system of examinations 



132 Entrance Requirements 

in history. The complete adoption of them will 
naturally involve a larger allotment of time to his- 
tory than is now given in examination schedules, 
and will impose a heavier burden upon those to 
whose lot the reading of papers in history falls ; 
but it is not Hkely that the demands on time and 
energy will prove greater than in other well-recog- 
nized admission subjects, and it is not unreason- 
able to expect college authorities to make suitable 
provision in these regards. 

The main element in entrance examinations in 
history must probably continue to be the writ- 
ten paper, but this should be set with the idea 
of testing to some extent the candidate's ability 
to use historical material, as well as his knowl- 
edge of important facts. The information ques- 
tions should not demand the simple reproduction 
of the statement of the text, but should in large 
measure be so framed as to require the grouping of 
facts in a different form from that followed in the 
books recommended for preparation. There should 
also be questions involving some power of discrimi- 
nation and some use of legitimate comparison on 
the part of the candidate. It is not to be expected 
that skill in utilizing historical material will be pres- 
ent in a high degree in the candidate for admission 
to college, but the student who has learned how to 
handle books and to extract information from them 



Proper Tests 133 

in the course of his secondary studies has the right, 
and the abiUty, to make this knowledge count for 
something toward college entrance. As suitable 
tests we may suggest comment on carefully chosen 
brief extracts from simple sources or modern works, 
analysis or discussion of more extended passages, 
supplemented perhaps by outline maps or concrete 
illustrations, — anything, in short, that will show 
the student's capacity of taking up a fresh ques- 
tion in a way that indicates some development of 
the historical sense. Naturally, attainments in this 
direction will be expected chiefly of those who pre- 
sent history as an additional option. 

Doubtless to many these tests will appear suffi- 
cient ; but it must always be borne in mind that a 
written paper, even when the questions have been 
prepared with great care, cannot yield such deci- 
sive results in history as it can, for example, in a 
subject like English composition. The examiner 
should always have an opportunity — and par- 
ticularly in doubtful cases — of supplementing by 
other means the information gained from the paper: 
One excellent adjunct is the submission by the can- 
didate of written work done in connection with his 
study of history in school. This may include note- 
books, abstracts of reading, and prepared papers, 
none of which, however, should be accepted with- 
out proper guarantees of ,authenticity and indepen- 



134 Entrance Requirements 

dent preparation. Another supplementary test, 
which is largely used in European examinations 
and has commended itself to the experience of 
many American examiners, consists of a brief oral 
conference with the candidate. This should be 
quite informal in character, and should aim to dis- 
cover, if possible, something concerning the person- 
ality of the candidate and the nature of his historical 
training, rather than to elicit brief answers to a few 
arbitrarily chosen questions. 



The following analytical statement will show at 
a glance our recommendation concerning the or- 
ganization of the history course. 

Four Years* Course in History 

First year. — Ancient History to 800 a.d. 

Seco7id year. — Mediaeval and Modern European History. 

Third year. — English History. 

Fourth year. — American History and Civil Goverment. 

Three Years* Course in History 

A 

Any three of the above blocks. 

B 

First or second year. — Ancient History to 800 a.d. 



Summary 135 

Second or third year. — English History, with special refer- 
ence to the chief events in the history of Continental 
Europe. 

Third or fourth year. — American History and Civil Govern- 
ment. 



First or second year. — Ancient History to 800 a.d. 

Second or third year. — Mediaeval and Modern European 
History. 

Third ox fourth year. — American History, with a considera- 
tion of the chief events in the History of England. 



First year. — Ancient History to 800 a.d. 

Second year. — English History, with reference to the chief 

events in later Mediaeval history (three times per 

week.) 
Third year. — English History, with reference to the chief 

events in Modern European History (three times per 

week). 
Fourth year. — American History and Civil Government. 



First year. — Ancient History to 800 a.d. 

Second year. — Mediaeval and Modern European History. 

Third year. — American History, with special reference to 

the development of English political principles and 

English expansion in connection with American colonial 

history (three times per week). 
Fourth year. — American History and Civil Government (three 

times per week). 



136 Entrance Requirements 

This report is offered with the hope that it may 
be of service to teachers of history and to those 
who have the task of arranging school programmes. 
We hope also that it does not inadequately express 
the opinion of progressive teachers and students as 
to what should be done for the development of 
secondary school work in history. 



Andrew C. McLaughlin {chairman)^ 

Professor of American History in the 

University of Michigan. 



Herbert B. Adams, 

Professor of American and In- 
stitutional History in Johns 
Hopkins University. 

George L. Fox, 

Rector of the Hopkins Gram- 
mar School, New Haven, 
Conn. 
Albert Bushnell Hart, 
Professor of History in Harvard 
University, 



Charles H. Haskins, 

Professor of European His- 
tory in the University of 
Wisconsin. 

Lucy M. Salmon, 

Professor of History in Vassar 
College. 

H. Morse Stephens, 

Professor of Modern Euro- 
pean History in Cornell 
University. 



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